How to Install Redis on Ubuntu using Docker

Introduction

In this demonstration we’ll be installing Redis on Ubuntu using Docker. This will be a step by step walk through with the commands you’ll need to follow along. If you’ve been wanting to learn Redis and play around with it’s syntax,commands, and capabilities, installing a Docker container with Redis is on it is a good way to go. You can play with it as much as you’d like then kill the container when you’re done.

Prerequisities

• You should have Docker installed on your computer whether it’s Mac, PC, or Linux Note: We’re doing the demo on a Mac with OSX but since we’re using Docker you should have the same process as long as you have Docker up and running.

How To Install Redis on Ubuntu using Docker

Create an ubuntu container

Our first step is to create an ubuntue docker container. We can do so by running this command:

This creates an instance of the ubuntu docker image locally on our machine. You can check see all the containers on your machine by using this command:

We can see we have a docker container with the id fe431bc3c9c2 made from the image ubuntu and its randomly assigned name is silly_rubin.

This will give you a table similar to this (we’ve reformatted it to fit):

What is the -ti flag? * This gives us an interactive shell into the docker container. The terminal will act as if you are inside the shell of your silly_rubin docker container.

Notice that your shell now looks different than before:

This is the shell for your new container which we’ll install Redis in.

Update and upgrade apt-get

Our next step is to update and upgrade the package manager apt-get so that we can download the latest Redis package.

Let’s first update apt-get with the following command:

When that’s finished we’ll run the upgrade:

Install Redis using the apt-get Package Manager

Now we’ll use apt-get to install Redis. The package name that we’re looking for is redis-server. Run the following command to install it:

You now have Redis installed!

Make a copy of the config file just in case

It’s good practice to make a copy of the config file so you have the original in case you mess anything up. The file is called redis.conf and it’s full location is etc/redis/redis.conf. We’ll make a copy named redis.conf.default and leave it in the same folder with this command:

Start Redis

Now we will start Redis! Note: It will take over this terminal but we’ll continue in another terminal.

Start Redis with the following command:

You’ll receive an output that looks similar to this:

You can see next to the logo that it gives you the port number Port: 6379 and at the very end says Ready to accept connections.

Verify it’s working

Now to verify that Redis is working we’ll issue a few Redis commands. Since it’s taken over this terminal, open up a new one . When you open up a new terminal though you are no longer in your container but you can execute a command that will get you into it.

In the new terminal use this docker command to get into your container’s terminal. ( You’ll need to replace silly_rubin with your container name ):

You should see the container prompt again that looks something like this:

Run the Redis CLI ( Command Line Interface )

Now we can work directly with Redis by running the Redis Command Line Interface. To start it run this command:

You should see a prompt like this:

First we’ll do the most basic Redis command just to verify it’s working. If we execute the ping command it should respond with “PONG”. Let’s try it:

It worked!

Now try setting a key value pair. We’ll use the key “foo” and the value of 100.

127.0.0.1:6379> GET foo `

Great! We’ve verified it’s working!

Conclusion

We’ve gone through the steps of installing Redis on Ubuntu using Docker. If you’re already on a Ubuntu system then of course you don’t need the Docker part of this tutorial but if you’re running OSX or Windows then you’ll probably find the Docker implementation very helpful. With Redis installed you can now explore its commands and functionality. What we showed here is just for educational purposes and shouldn’t be used in a production environment. If you’re looking to use Redis in production please reach out to us at Object Rocket and we can connect you with an expert who’ll be more than glad to help you.