Gloo deploys Redis as a backing instance for several components, such as the Gloo management server, UI, and Gloo portal server. You can also bring your own instance, such as Redis Enterprise or a cloud provider service like AWS ElastiCache. For more information, see Backing databases.

Use the following troubleshooting topics to help debug issues with Redis.

Review data in Redis

To review the data that is stored in Redis, you can connect to the local Redis instance. If you bring your own Redis, you must use those connection values. For more information, see your Redis provider docs, such as Amazon ElastiCache or Google Cloud Memorystore.

Choose between using the Redis CLI or RedisInsights.

Redis CLI

You can use the Redis CLI that is built into your deployment to review the data in your database.

  1. Install Redis in your cluster so that you can use the redis-cli to connect to your Redis instance.

    When you install Gloo Mesh Gateway with the default settings, Redis is installed in the cluster for you. You can skip this step.

    To connect to your own local Redis instance, make sure to get its details, such as my-redis in a redis namespace, as well as any authentication details.

    To connect your own external Redis in a cloud instance, such as AWS ElastiCache:

    1. Deploy the Redis CLI, such as with the following simple deployment. For more information, see the Redis docs.

        kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: redis-cli
  labels:
    app: redis-cli
spec:
  replicas: 1
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: redis-cli
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: redis-cli
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: redis-cli
        image: redis:latest
        command: ["sleep", "infinity"]  # Keeps the container running indefinitely
EOF

    2. Verify that you can access the Redis pod by logging into the pod.

        kubectl exec -it deploy/redis-cli -- /bin/sh

    3. Optional: For TLS connections that use a public CA, such as for AWS ElastiCache, make sure that the Redis CA certificates are up to date.

         apt-get install ca-certificates

    4. Verify that the CA certificates are installed.

        ls /etc/ssl/certs

      Example truncated output:

        002c0b4f.0
02265526.0
...
Amazon_Root_CA_1.pem
Amazon_Root_CA_2.pem
Amazon_Root_CA_3.pem
Amazon_Root_CA_4.pem
...

  2. From your terminal, log in to the Redis pod and open a Redis CLI shell.

    You can open a Redis CLI shell session by logging in to the Redis instance in the gloo-mesh namespace, such as gloo-mesh-redis which backs the Gloo management server and UI.

      kubectl exec -n gloo-mesh deploy/gloo-mesh-redis -it -- redis-cli

    You can open a Redis CLI shell session by logging in to the Redis instance in the add-ons namespace, such as redis in the gloo-mesh namespace, which backs the rate limiter, external auth, or portal server add-ons.

      kubectl exec -n gloo-mesh deploy/redis -it -- redis-cli

    You can open a Redis CLI shell session by logging into the Redis pod with the details that you got in the previous step. Include the --tls flag if your Redis instance enforces a TLS connection. Include the -a flag with your password if your Redis instance enforces auth.

      kubectl exec -n redis deploy/my-redis -it -- redis-cli --tls -a 'my-password'

    You can open a Redis CLI shell session by logging into the redis-cli pod that you deployed in the previous step. Update the host with your cloud instance details. Include the --tls flag if your Redis instance enforces a TLS connection. Include the -a flag with your password if your Redis instance enforces auth.

      kubectl exec -n default deploy/redis-cli -it -- redis-cli -h master.<my-redis>.abcdefg.use2.cache.amazonaws.com --tls -a 'my-password' -p 6379

  3. Run Redis CLI commands, such as monitor or keys. For more information, see the Redis docs.

    Example response of data populated by the management server:

      keys *
1) "$CLUSTER_NAME~apps~v1~Deployment"
2) "reports#$CLUSTER_NAME#httpbin#$CLUSTER_NAME"
3) "$CLUSTER_NAME~install.istio.io~v1alpha1~IstioOperator"
4) "reports#$CLUSTER_NAME#gloo-mesh#globalcccfde00-e4a9-4867-b6c0-5df8601f6e1e"
5) "$CLUSTER_NAME~admissionregistration.k8s.io~v1~MutatingWebhookConfiguration"
6) "reports#idx"
7) "reports#$CLUSTER_NAME#store#$CLUSTER_NAME"
8) "gloo.mesh.key.set"

    Example response of rate limit counters:

      monitor
OK
1681223733.198361 [0 10.xxx.x.x:xxxxx] "INCRBY" "tree|solo.io|generic_key^gloo-mesh.rl-server-config-gloo-mesh-$CLUSTER_NAME-rate-limiter|generic_key^counter|1718236800" "1"

    Example response of API keys for the external auth service and portal server add-ons. Note that the API key name and value are hashed based on the apiKeyStorage.secretKey that you configured when setting up the add-ons.

      keys *
1) "1bbe3f25-5a2a-4797-8ac0-d59c7480377a"
2) "abcmHk2Iwcy3VL+NNswyrs3B4YIEx39BG84jzwcoWB8="

get "1bbe3f25-5a2a-4797-8ac0-d59c7480377a"
"xksmHk2Iwcy3VL+NNswyrs3B4YIEx39BG84jzwcoWB8="

get "abcmHk2Iwcy3VL+NNswyrs3B4YIEx39BG84jzwcoWB8="
"{\"api_key\":\"abcmHk2Iwcy3VL+NNswyrs3B4YIEx39BG84jzwcoWB8=\",\"labels\":[\"first.last@example.com\"],\"metadata\":{\"config_id\":\"gloo-mesh.api-key-auth-default-cluster-name-mgt-ext-auth-service\",\"created-ts-unix\":\"1718742070\",\"name\":\"gold-api-key-name\",\"usagePlan\":\"gold\",\"username\":\"first.last@example.com\"},\"uuid\":\"1bbe3f25-5a2a-4797-8ac0-d59c7480377a\"}"

RedisInsights

RedisInsights is a desktop application that you can install for UI- and CLI-based interactions. For more information, see the Redis docs.

  1. Install RedisInsights. The steps vary depending on where you want to install the app.
  2. Enable port forwarding on the Redis deployment. Update the namespace and deployment to match the Redis instance in your cluster.
      kubectl port-forward -n gloo-mesh deploy/gloo-mesh-redis 6379
  3. Launch the RedisInsights app.
  4. Click + Add Redis Database and enter in your localhost and port details, which by default are 127.0.0.1:6379.
  5. Click the database that you just added.
  6. Use the UI or CLI to explore the data. For example, you can click the Browser tab (the key icon) and toggle the Key view to explore all of the keys in the database instance, as shown in the following screenshot.

RedisInsights view of all keys in the database
RedisInsights view of all keys in the database

Debug Redis for the Gloo management server

After debugging the management server and agent pods, you might still see error messages related to reconciling state. Gloo stores the state of its resources in a Redis pod. You can try to restart the pod to resolve these reconciliation issues.

  1. Enable port forwarding on port 9091 of the gloo-mesh-mgmt-server pod to your localhost.

    For more information, see the CLI documentation.

      meshctl proxy

    Forward port 9091 of the gloo-mesh-mgmt-server pod to your localhost.

      kubectl port-forward -n gloo-mesh deploy/gloo-mesh-mgmt-server 9091

  2. Take snapshots of your current state in case you want to refer to the logs later, such as to open a Support issue.

      curl localhost:9091/snapshots/input -o input_snapshot.json 
curl localhost:9091/snapshots/output -o output_snapshot.json

  3. Get the gloo-mesh-redis-* pod.

      kubectl get pods -n gloo-mesh

    Example output:

      NAME                                    READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
gloo-mesh-mgmt-server-c7cc4dd77-8shdw   1/1     Running   0          4d19h
gloo-mesh-redis-794d79b7df-28mcr        1/1     Running   0          4d19h
gloo-mesh-ui-c8cfd5fdd-mdscf            3/3     Running   0          4d19h
prometheus-server-647b488bb-ns748       2/2     Running   0          4d19h

  4. Restart the Redis deployment.

      kubectl rollout restart deployment/gloo-mesh-redis -n gloo-mesh

  5. Try checking your Gloo management server and agent logs to see if the reconciliation errors are resolved.

Verify that the add-ons share Redis settings

If you use add-ons such as the external auth service and portal server together, they must share the same backing Redis instance. If the configurations are different, you might experience issues.

Verify that the external auth and portal server add-ons are configured to use the same Redis instance.

  1. Verify that any necessary secrets are created.

      kubectl get secrets -n gloo-mesh

    Example output:

      NAME                                      TYPE                    DATA   AGE
ext-auth-service-api-key-secret-key       Opaque                  1      47s
ext-auth-service-api-key-storage          Opaque                  1      47s
ext-auth-service-signing-key              Opaque                  1      47s
portal-storage-config                     Opaque                  1      47s
portal-redis-certs                        Opaque                  1      47s
portal-redis-credentials                  Opaque                  1      47s

  2. Log in to the portal server and external auth service pods, and verify that the host information is stored along the config path that you set.

    1. Log in to the portal server pod.
        kubectl exec -it -n gloo-mesh pods/$(kubectl get pod -l app=gloo-mesh-portal-server -A -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}') -- /bin/sh
    2. Check the file contents at the config path that you set, such as /etc/redis-client-config/config.yaml.
        cat /etc/redis-client-config/config.yaml
    3. Confirm that the value matches the host address for your Redis instance ($REDIS_HOST).
    4. To log out of the pod, enter exit.
    1. Log in to the external auth service pod.
        kubectl exec -it -n gloo-mesh pods/$(kubectl get pod -l app=ext-auth-service -A -o jsonpath='{.items[0].metadata.name}') -- /bin/sh
    2. Check the file contents at the config path that you set, such as /etc/apikeys/storage-config.yaml.
        cat /etc/apikeys/storage-config.yaml
    3. Confirm that the value matches the host address for your Redis instance ($REDIS_HOST).
    4. To log out of the pod, enter exit.