Introduction
Redis is an in-memory key-value store known for its flexibility, performance, and wide language support. In this guide, we will demonstrate how to install and configure Redis on an Ubuntu 16.04 server.Prerequisites
To complete this guide, you will need access to an Ubuntu 16.04 server. You will need a non-root user withsudo privileges to perform the administrative functions required for this process. You can learn how to set up an account with these privileges by following our Ubuntu 16.04 initial server setup guide.When you are ready to begin, log in to your Ubuntu 16.04 server with your
sudo user and continue below.Install the Build and Test Dependencies
In order to get the latest version of Redis, we will be compiling and installing the software from source. Before we download the code, we need to satisfy the build dependencies so that we can compile the software.To do this, we can install the
build-essential meta-package from the Ubuntu repositories. We will also be downloading the tcl package, which we can use to test our binaries.We can update our local
apt package cache and install the dependencies by typing:
- sudo apt-get update
- sudo apt-get install build-essential tcl
Download, Compile, and Install Redis
Next, we can begin to build Redis.Download and Extract the Source Code
Since we won't need to keep the source code that we'll compile long term (we can always re-download it), we will build in the/tmp directory. Let's move there now:
- cd /tmp
- curl -O http://download.redis.io/redis-stable.tar.gz
- tar xzvf redis-stable.tar.gz
- cd redis-stable
Build and Install Redis
Now, we can compile the Redis binaries by typing:
- make
- make test
- sudo make install
Configure Redis
Now that Redis is installed, we can begin to configure it.To start off, we need to create a configuration directory. We will use the conventional
/etc/redis directory, which can be created by typing:
- sudo mkdir /etc/redis
- sudo cp /tmp/redis-stable/redis.conf /etc/redis
- sudo nano /etc/redis/redis.conf
supervised directive. Currently, this is set to no. Since we are running an operating system that uses the systemd init system, we can change this to systemd:
/etc/redis/redis.conf
. . .
# If you run Redis from upstart or systemd, Redis can interact with your
# supervision tree. Options:
# supervised no - no supervision interaction
# supervised upstart - signal upstart by putting Redis into SIGSTOP mode
# supervised systemd - signal systemd by writing READY=1 to $NOTIFY_SOCKET
# supervised auto - detect upstart or systemd method based on
# UPSTART_JOB or NOTIFY_SOCKET environment variables
# Note: these supervision methods only signal "process is ready."
# They do not enable continuous liveness pings back to your supervisor.
supervised systemd
. . .
dir directory. This option specifies the directory that Redis will use to dump persistent data. We need to pick a location that Redis will have write permission and that isn't viewable by normal users.We will use the
/var/lib/redis directory for this, which we will create in a moment:
/etc/redis/redis.conf
. . .
# The working directory.
#
# The DB will be written inside this directory, with the filename specified
# above using the 'dbfilename' configuration directive.
#
# The Append Only File will also be created inside this directory.
#
# Note that you must specify a directory here, not a file name.
dir /var/lib/redis
. . .
Create a Redis systemd Unit File
Next, we can create a systemd unit file so that the init system can manage the Redis process.Create and open the
/etc/systemd/system/redis.service file to get started:
- sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/redis.service
[Unit] section by adding a description and defining a requirement that networking be available before starting this service:
/etc/systemd/system/redis.service
[Unit]
Description=Redis In-Memory Data Store
After=network.target
[Service] section, we need to specify the service's behavior. For security purposes, we should not run our service as root. We should use a dedicated user and group, which we will call redis for simplicity. We will create these momentarily.To start the service, we just need to call the
redis-server binary, pointed at our configuration. To stop it, we can use the Redis shutdown command, which can be executed with the redis-cli binary. Also, since we want Redis to recover from failures when possible, we will set the Restart directive to "always":
/etc/systemd/system/redis.service
[Unit]
Description=Redis In-Memory Data Store
After=network.target
[Service]
User=redis
Group=redis
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/redis-server /etc/redis/redis.conf
ExecStop=/usr/local/bin/redis-cli shutdown
Restart=always
[Install] section, we can define the systemd target that the service should attach to if enabled (configured to start at boot):
/etc/systemd/system/redis.service
[Unit]
Description=Redis In-Memory Data Store
After=network.target
[Service]
User=redis
Group=redis
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/redis-server /etc/redis/redis.conf
ExecStop=/usr/local/bin/redis-cli shutdown
Restart=always
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Create the Redis User, Group and Directories
Now, we just have to create the user, group, and directory that we referenced in the previous two files.Begin by creating the
redis user and group. This can be done in a single command by typing:
- sudo adduser --system --group --no-create-home redis
/var/lib/redis directory by typing:
- sudo mkdir /var/lib/redis
redis user and group ownership over this directory:
- sudo chown redis:redis /var/lib/redis
- sudo chmod 770 /var/lib/redis
Start and Test Redis
Now, we are ready to start the Redis server.Start the Redis Service
Start up the systemd service by typing:
- sudo systemctl start redis
- sudo systemctl status redis
Output
● redis.service - Redis Server
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/redis.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Wed 2016-05-11 14:38:08 EDT; 1min 43s ago
Process: 3115 ExecStop=/usr/local/bin/redis-cli shutdown (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 3124 (redis-server)
Tasks: 3 (limit: 512)
Memory: 864.0K
CPU: 179ms
CGroup: /system.slice/redis.service
└─3124 /usr/local/bin/redis-server 127.0.0.1:6379
. . .
Test the Redis Instance Functionality
To test that your service is functioning correctly, connect to the Redis server with the command-line client:
- redis-cli
- ping
Output
PONG
- set test "It's working!"
Output
OK
- get test
Output
"It's working!"
- exit
- sudo systemctl restart redis
- redis-cli
- get test
Output
"It's working!"
- exit
Enable Redis to Start at Boot
If all of your tests worked, and you would like to start Redis automatically when your server boots, you can enable the systemd service.To do so, type:
- sudo systemctl enable redis
Output
Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/redis.service to /etc/systemd/system/redis.service.
