How to Securely Connect to Redis with TLS/SSL in Go, NodeJS, PHP, Python, and redis-cli

Introduction

Vultr's Managed Redis Database requires TLS/SSL connections in your source code or CLI. This article has code samples demonstrating how to connect securely with TLS/SSL with redis-cli and popular programming languages.

How to Find your TLS/SSL Connection URL

To locate your Redis connection URL, navigate to the Overview section of your managed Redis database, then click Copy Redis URL, which places it on your clipboard.

• The URL is assembled from the username, password, host, and port values.

• All the code in this article uses this example URL, which you should replace with your real one:

    rediss://USERNAME:YOUR_PASSWORD@YOUR_HOST:PORT_NUMBER

Important: Note the double ss in the protocol, rediss://, which shows that the connection uses TLS/SSL encryption.

Connect with Go

First, get the go-redis/redis library.

$ go get github.com/go-redis/redis/v8

Next, open a file named main.go and paste the following. Replace the example Redis URL with yours.

package main

import (
    "context"
    "fmt"

    "github.com/go-redis/redis/v8"
)

var ctx = context.Background()

func main() {
    redisURL := "rediss://USERNAME:YOUR_PASSWORD@YOUR_HOST:PORT_NUMBER"

    addr, err := redis.ParseURL(redisURL)
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }

    rdb := redis.NewClient(addr)

    err = rdb.Set(ctx, "key", "Hello Vultr!", 0).Err()
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }

    val, err := rdb.Get(ctx, "key").Result()
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
    fmt.Println("Value is:", val)
}

This creates a key named key, with the value Hello Vultr!. Then, it retrieves the key and prints its value.

To run this example:

$ go run main.go

Connect with NodeJS

First, install the ioredis library.

$ npm install --save ioredis

Next, open a file named index.php and paste the following. Replace the example Redis URL with yours.

const Redis = require("ioredis");
const redisUrl = "rediss://USERNAME:YOUR_PASSWORD@YOUR_HOST:PORT_NUMBER"
const redis = new Redis(redisUrl);

redis.set("key", "Hello Vultr!");

redis.get("key").then(function (result) {
    console.log(`Value is: ${result}`);
    redis.disconnect();
});

This creates a key named key, with the value Hello Vultr!. Then, it retrieves the key and prints its value.

To run this example:

$ node index.js

Connect with PHP

First, install the predis library.

$ composer require predis/predis

Next, open a file named index.php and paste the following. Replace the example Redis URL with yours.

<?php

require 'vendor/autoload.php';
Predis\Autoloader::register();

$redis_url = 'rediss://USERNAME:YOUR_PASSWORD@YOUR_HOST:PORT_NUMBER';

$client = new Predis\Client($redis_url);

$client->set('key', 'Hello Vultr!');
$value = $client->get('key');

echo "Value is: {$value}";

This creates a key named key, with the value Hello Vultr!. Then, it retrieves the key and prints its value.

To run this example:

$ php index.php

Connect with Python

First, install the redis-py library.

$ pip install redis

Next, open a file named main.py and paste the following. Replace the example Redis URL with yours.

import redis

def main():
    redis_url = 'rediss://USERNAME:YOUR_PASSWORD@YOUR_HOST:PORT_NUMBER'
    redis_client = redis.from_url(redis_url)

    redis_client.set('key', 'Hello Vultr!')
    key = redis_client.get('key').decode('utf-8')

    print('Value is:', key)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

This creates a key named key, with the value Hello Vultr!. Then, it retrieves the key and prints its value.

To run this example:

$ python main.py

Connect with redis-cli

First, you'll need to have redis-cli installed.

• Option 1: Install redis-cli as part of the Redis package for your operating system.
• Option 2: Install the NodeJS standalone version of redis-cli.

Next, execute the following from a terminal window. Replace the example Redis URL with yours.

$ redis-cli -u rediss://USERNAME:YOUR_PASSWORD@YOUR_HOST:PORT_NUMBER

To check the connection, run the INFO command, which returns all the Redis parameters.

INFO

More Information

These are only a few of the launguages and clients available for Redis that support TLS/SSL. You'll find even more in the official documentation.