How to install redis

How to install `redis`

January 31, 2020

This article revisits essentials on how to install redis key/value data store on development and production servers.

This article has complementary materials to the Testing nodejs Applications book. However, the article is designed to help both those who already bought the book, as well as the wide audience of software developers to setup working environment. You can grab a copy of this book on this link

Installing `redis` on Linux

It is always a good idea to update the system before start working. There is no exception, even when a daily task updates automatically binaries. That can be achieved on Ubuntu and Aptitude enabled systems as following:

$ apt-get update # Fetch list of available updates
$ apt-get upgrade # Upgrades current packages
$ apt-get dist-upgrade # Installs only new updates

Example: updating aptitude binaries

At this point most of packages should be installed or upgraded. Except Packages whose PPA have been removed or not available in the registry. Installing software can be done by installing binaries, or using Ubuntu package manager.

Installing a `redis` on Linux using `apt`

Updating redis – In case the above global update didn't take effect. The -y option passes YES, so there are no prompt for Y/N? while installing libraries.

# Installing binaries 
$ curl -O http://download.redis.io/redis-stable.tar.gz
$ tar xzvf redis-stable.tar.gz && cd redis-stable 
$ make && make install
# Configure redis - for first time installs 

# Install via PPA 
$ apt-get install -y python-software-properties #provides access to add-apt-repository 
$ apt-get install -y software-properties-common python-software-properties

# @link https://packages.ubuntu.com/bionic/redis 
$ add-apt-repository -y ppa:bionic/redis # Alternatively rwky/redis
$ apt-get update
$ apt-get install -y redis-server

# Starting Redis for development on Mac
$ redis-server /usr/local/etc/redis.conf

Example: installing redis binaries with aptitude

Installing `redis` on a Mac system

In case homebrew is not already available on your mac, this is how to get one up and running. On its own, homebrew depends on ruby runtime to be available.

homebrew is a package manager and software installation tool that makes most developer tools installation a breeze.

$ /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Example: installation instruction as provided by brew.sh

Generally speaking, this is how to install/uninstall things with brew

$ brew install wget 
$ brew uninstall wget

Example: installing/uninstalling wget binaries using homebrew

We have to to stress on the fact that Homebrew installs packages to their own directory and then symlinks their files into /usr/local.

It is always a good idea to update the system before start working. And that, even when we have a daily task that automatically updates the system for us. macOS can use homebrew package manager on maintenance matters. To update/upgrade or check outdated packages, following commands would help.

$ brew outdated                   # lists all outdated packages
$ brew cleanup -n                 # visualize the list of things are going to be cleaned up.

$ brew upgrade                    # Upgrades all things on the system
$ brew update                     # Updates all outdated + brew itself
$ brew update <formula>           # Updates one formula

$ brew install <formula@version>    # Installs <formula> at a particular version.
$ brew tap <formular@version>/brew  # Installs <formular> from third party repository

# untap/re-tap a repo when previous installation failed
$ brew untap <formular> && brew tap <formula>   
$ brew services start <formular>@<version>

Example: key commands to work with homebrew cli

For more informations, visit: Homebrew ~ FAQ.

Installing a `redis` on a macOS using `curl`

Installing redis via a curl command is not that different as on Linux system. The following instructions can accomplish the installation.

# Installing binaries 
$ curl -O http://download.redis.io/redis-stable.tar.gz
$ tar xzvf redis-stable.tar.gz && cd redis-stable 
$ make && make install
# Configure redis - for first time installs

Example: install redis binaries using curl and make

Installing a `redis` on a Mac using `homebrew`

$ brew install redis        # Installation following <formula>@<version> template 
$ brew services start redis # Starting redis as a service  

# Alternatively start as usual 
$ redis-server /usr/local/etc/redis.conf
# Running on port: 6379

Example: install redis binaries using homebrew

Installing `redis` on a Windows machine

MacOs comes with Python and Ruby already enabled, these two languages are somehow required to run successfully a nodejs environment. This is an easy target as redis gives windows binaries that we can download and install on a couple of clicks.

Automated upgrades

Before we dive into automatic upgrades, we should consider nuances associated to managing a mongodb instance. The updates fall into two major, quite interesting, categories: patch updates and version upgrades.

Following the SemVer ~ aka Semantic Versioning standard, it is recommended that the only pair minor versions be considered for version upgrades. This is because minor versions, as well as major versions, are subject to introducing breaking changes or incompatibility between two versions. On the other hand, patches do not introduce breaking changes. Those can therefore be automated.

We should highlight that it is always better to upgrade at deployment time. The process is even easier in containerized context. We should also automate only patches, to avoid to miss security patches.

In the context of Linux, we will use the unattended-upgrades package to do the work.

$ apt-get install unattended-upgrades apticron

Example: install unattended-upgrades

Two things to fine-tune to make this solution work are: to enable a blacklist of packages we do not to automatically update, and two, to enable particular packages we would love to update on a periodical basis. That is compiled in the following shell scripts.

Unattended-Upgrade::Allowed-Origins {
//  "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}";
    "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-security"; # upgrading security patches only 
//   "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-updates";  
//  "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-proposed";
//  "${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-backports";
};

Unattended-Upgrade::Package-Blacklist {
    "vim";
};

Example: fine-tune the blacklist and whitelist in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

The next step is necessary to make sure unattended-upgrades download, install and cleanups tasks have a default period: once, twice a day or a week.

APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "1";            # Updates package list once a day
APT::Periodic::Download-Upgradeable-Packages "1";   # download upgrade candidates once a day
APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval "7";               # clean week worth of unused packages once a week
APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "1";              # install downloaded packages once a day

Example: tuning the tasks parameter /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/20auto-upgrades

This approach works on Linux(Ubuntu), especially deployed in production, but not Windows nor macOS. The last issue, is to be able to report problems when an update fails, so that a human can intervene whenever possible. That is where the second tool apticron in first paragraph intervenes. To make it work, we will specify which email to send messages to, and that will be all.

EMAIL="<email>@<host.tld>"

Example: tuning reporting tasks email parameter /etc/apticron/apticron.conf

Conclusion

In this article we revisited ways to install redis on various platforms. Even though configuration was beyond the scope of this article, we managed to get everyday quick refreshers out.

Reading list

#nodejs #homebrew #UnattendedUpgrades #nvm #n #y2020 #Jan2020 #HowTo #ConfiguringNodejsApplications #tdd #TestingNodejsApplications