How to run Redis 6 with Docker and Docker-Compose

In this guide we are going to explore how to run Redis 6 locally with docker and docker compose. This can be helpful if you want to run Redis locally without installing it in your server or if you want to run multiple versions of Redis seamlessly.

Also check:

Prerequisites

To follow along, ensure you have the following:

Docker installed locally and permissions to use it to launch containers
Docker compose is installed locally
Basic knowledge of the command line

Using the docker run command

We are going to use the docker run command to achieve our goal. The version of Redis that we want is redis:6.2-alpine – a minimal version of Redis container.

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$ docker run -d \
    --name my-redis \
    -p 6379:6379 \
    redis:6.2-alpine \
    redis-server --save 60 1 --requirepass SuperSecretPass1 --loglevel warning
Unable to find image 'redis:6.2-alpine' locally
6.2-alpine: Pulling from library/redis
a0d0a0d46f8b: Already exists
a04b0375051e: Pull complete
cdc2bb0f9590: Pull complete
0aa2a8e7bd65: Pull complete
f64034a16b58: Pull complete
7b9178a22893: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:58132ff3162cf9ecc8e2042c77b2ec46f6024c35e83bda3cabde76437406f8ac
Status: Downloaded newer image for redis:6.2-alpine
57ba51f4a23615ebde5f3063b04296021c3d43a78a45658b4a020af161d93c96

In the above command:

The -d instructs docker container to run as a detached process. It run container in background and print container ID
-p is for port mapping. We are instructing the container to expose the container port externally. Container port 6379 is mapped to host port 6379. That means the service can be accessed through localhost:6379
The redis:6.2-alpine defines the image that we are running. We are running redis image version 6.2 - alpine image (a minimal version).
The remaining commands (redis-server --save 60 1 --requirepass SuperSecretPass1 --loglevel warning) defines the command to execute when the container starts. In our case, we are defining the default command with the redis-server command passing arguments to save data every 60 seconds and specifying a password for our redis.

To check that our container is running as expected, use the docker ps command:

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$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID   IMAGE              COMMAND                  CREATED         STATUS         PORTS                                                  NAMES
57ba51f4a236   redis:6.2-alpine   "docker-entrypoint.s&#x2026;"   5 minutes ago   Up 5 minutes   0.0.0.0:6379->6379/tcp, :::6379->6379/tcp              my-redis

In my case the container is running as my-redis the name we gave it. We can login to the container using the docker exec command while executing /bin/bash interactively. Here we are also logging in to posgtres with the credentials we specified above and checking the version.

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$ docker exec -it my-redis /bin/sh
/data # redis-cli
127.0.0.1:6379> auth SuperSecretPass1
OK
127.0.0.1:6379> keys *
(empty array)
127.0.0.1:6379>

If you need to clean up the container when not in use, you can stop and remove the container using this command:

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docker stop my-redis

# Removing
docker rm my-redis

Using the docker-compose tool

We can achieve the same functionality with docker-compose. Docker Compose is a tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications. With Compose, you use a YAML file to configure your application’s services.

Docker Compose allows you to define the service (Redis in our case) with properties like the image to use, command to overide the default Dockerfile command and andports to expose.

Here is how we would use docker-compose to achieve the functionality above. Save this as docker-compose.yaml:

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version: "3.9"

services:
  redis:
    image: redis:6.2-alpine
    ports:
      - 6379:6379
    command: redis-server --save 60 1 --requirepass SuperSecretPass1 --loglevel warning

Now bring up the containers:

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$ docker-compose up -d
Creating network "red_default" with the default driver
Creating red_redis_1 ... done

The commands:

up brings up the container
-d in a detached mode

Verify the container processes using the ps command:

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$ docker-compose ps
   Name                  Command               State                    Ports
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
red_redis_1   docker-entrypoint.sh redis ...   Up      0.0.0.0:6379->6379/tcp,:::6379->6379/tcp

To login to the container and login to redis, use this:

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$ docker-compose exec redis /bin/sh
/data # redis-cli
127.0.0.1:6379> auth SuperSecretPass1
OK
127.0.0.1:6379> keys *
(empty array)
127.0.0.1:6379>

Conclusion

In this guide we managed to run Redis 6 as a container in our system, we explored using the docker run command while passing the required arguments an alternative approach of simplifying the process with docker-compose