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Local Redis

Bring your own local Redis instance, such as a Redis Enterprise deployment in your cluster.

About

Instead of using the built-in local Redis®* ¹ instances, you can achieve higher availability, disaster recovery, and enhanced control and security by deploying your own Redis instances locally to the cluster. For more information, see About Redis.

Step 1: Deploy Redis to your cluster

Deploy a local Redis instance to your cluster.

Determine the cluster that you want to deploy Redis instances to. For multicluster setups, use an external Redis instance in a cloud provider instead.
Make sure that the local Redis instance can connect to the Gloo Mesh Gateway components that you want to back up. For example, you might choose to deploy the Redis instance to the same Kubernetes namespace as the component. Otherwise, you might need to ensure connectivity across the namespaces.
Configure any deployment options that you want, such as resource requests and limits.
Set up data persistence. You can also configure single-region, multi-zone HA with automatic failover by using a single, sharded Redis Enterprise instance with one primary and up to five replicas. For more information, see the Redis docs.
Deploy your Redis instance. For more information, see the Redis Enterprise for Kubernetes docs or Redis Community Edition docs.

Step 2: Get your Gloo environment details

You can configure Redis during an initial installation or by performing an upgrade. Either way, you can configure the Redis details in your Helm values file.

Installation

If you have not installed Gloo Mesh Gateway yet, prepare details for your installation.

Decide the Helm release namespace to use. The example uses the names suggested throughout the documentation, gloo-platform and gloo-mesh.
```
  export GLOO_MESH_RELEASE_NAMESPACE=gloo-mesh
  
```
Create a Helm values file for your installation, such as gloo-single.yaml for a single cluster or mgmt-plane.yaml and data-plane.yaml for a multicluster environment.

Upgrade

If you are upgrading Gloo Mesh Gateway to set up Redis, get the details of your installation.

Save the details of your Gloo Mesh Gateway installation, including the Helm chart namespace for the component that you want to set up the Redis instance for. In the following example, the release name is gloo-platform and the namespace is gloo-mesh, but you can update your values accordingly.
```
  export GLOO_MESH_RELEASE_NAMESPACE=gloo-mesh
  
```
To get the values for your own release, run the following Helm command.
```
  helm list --all-namespaces
  
```
```
  NAME                 	NAMESPACE       	REVISION	UPDATED                             	STATUS  	CHART
gloo-platform        	gloo-mesh       	1      	  2023-09-01 13:26:56.061102 -0400 EDT	deployed	gloo-platform-2.7.0-beta1
  
```

Get your Gloo Platform Helm values file. For more information, see Upgrade guide.

Single cluster:

  helm get values gloo-platform -o yaml -n gloo-mesh > gloo-single.yaml
open gloo-single.yaml

Multicluster:

  helm get values gloo-platform -n gloo-mesh -o yaml --kube-context $MGMT_CONTEXT > mgmt-plane.yaml
open mgmt-plane.yaml

  helm get values gloo-platform -n gloo-mesh -o yaml --kube-context $REMOTE_CONTEXT > data-plane.yaml
open data-plane.yaml

Step 3: Set up the Redis store

Through Helm, you can configure Redis to store the data for several Gloo Mesh Gateway, as described in About Redis. After, Gloo deploys a Redis instance for each one based on the details that you configure.

When you install or upgrade Gloo Mesh Gateway, include the following Helm values to enable each component to use your own local Redis instance.

info

To share the same backing Redis instance, configure each component in the exact same way. For example, configure each component with the same client address and any other subsequent configuration such as TLS details.

  
redisStore:
  extAuthService:
    # Disable the default built-in Redis.
    deployment:
      enabled: false
    client:
      # Provide the address to your own local Redis instance.
      # This value is typically the Kubernetes service name that the Gloo component can access.
      address: my-redis.redis:6379

  
redisStore:
  insights:
    # Disable the default built-in Redis.
    deployment:
      enabled: false
    client:
      # Provide the address to your own local Redis instance.
      # This value is typically the Kubernetes service name that the Gloo component can access.
      address: my-redis.redis:6379

  
redisStore:
  rateLimiter:
    # Disable the default built-in Redis.
    deployment:
      enabled: false
    client:
      # Provide the address to your own local Redis instance.
      # This value is typically the Kubernetes service name that the Gloo component can access.
      address: my-redis.redis:6379

  
redis:
  deployment:
    # Disable the creation of the local Redis deployment and service,
    # so that you can use the redisStore configuration path instead.
    enabled: false

  
redisStore:
  snapshot:
    # Disable the default built-in Redis.
    deployment:
      enabled: false
    client:
      # Provide the address to your own local Redis instance.
      # This value is typically the Kubernetes service name that the Gloo component can access.
      address: my-redis.redis:6379

Step 4: Set up Redis authentication

Choose how to authenticate with your Redis cluster. Depending on your Redis provider, you might be required to use a specific authentication method, such as TLS certificates or a username and password.

TLS-encryption

Use your own public Certificate Authority (CA) certificate so that the Gloo client can establish trust for the TLS connection to the Redis server instance. Note that server-side credentials for a mutual TLS (mTLS) connection are currently not supported.

Enable TLS connections in your Redis instance. For more information, see the Redis Enterprise docs or the Redis Community Edition docs.
Create your own certificates such as with openssl or cert-manager to make the public CA certificate, ca.crt.
Create a Kubernetes secret to store the TLS credentials in the same namespace as the Gloo component that uses the Redis instance, such as gloo-mesh for the management server or UI. Run the following command from the local directory where your TLS certificates and key were created. Update the filenames of the certificate as necessary.
```
  kubectl apply -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
type: Opaque
metadata:
  name: "redis-certs"
  namespace: $GLOO_MESH_RELEASE_NAMESPACE
data:
  ca.crt: $(cat ca.crt | base64 | tr -d '\n')
EOF
  
```

Prepare the redis.certs section of the Helm values file that you previously retrieved with the details of the secret that you previously created.

  
redisStore:
  extAuthService:
    client:
      certs:
        # Enable TLS connections to the Redis instance.
        enabled: true
        # Name of the Kubernetes secret that has the TLS certs.
        # The secret must be in the same namespace as the external auth service.
        secretName: redis-certs
        # The key name in the data section of the Kubernetes secret
        # that has the CA certificate.
        caCertKey: ca.crt

  
redisStore:
  insights:
    client:
      certs:
        # Enable TLS connections to the Redis instance.
        enabled: true
        # Name of the Kubernetes secret that has the TLS certs.
        # The secret must be in the same namespace as the insights engine.
        secretName: redis-certs
        # The key name in the data section of the Kubernetes secret
        # that has the CA certificate.
        caCertKey: ca.crt

  
redisStore:
  rateLimiter:
    client:
      certs:
        # Enable TLS connections to the Redis instance.
        enabled: true
        # Name of the Kubernetes secret that has the TLS certs.
        # The secret must be in the same namespace as the rate limiter.
        secretName: redis-certs
        # The key name in the data section of the Kubernetes secret
        # that has the CA certificate.
        caCertKey: ca.crt

  
redisStore:
  snapshot:
    client:
      certs:
        # Enable TLS connections to the Redis instance.
        enabled: true
        # Name of the Kubernetes secret that has the TLS certs.
        # The secret must be in the same namespace as the management server.
        secretName: redis-certs
        # The key name in the data section of the Kubernetes secret
        # that has the CA certificate.
        caCertKey: ca.crt

Password authentication

For a username and password auth, complete the following steps.

Enable password auth for your Redis instance. For more information, see the Redis Enterprise docs or Redis Community Edition docs.
Save the following values as environment variables.
- Username: If your Redis instance does not have a username, you can omit this value.
- Password: Note the password string.
```
  export REDIS_UN=default
export REDIS_PW=<password>
  
```

Create a Kubernetes secret to store the credentials in the same namespace as the management server.

  kubectl apply -f- <<EOF
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
type: Opaque
metadata:
   name: redis-auth-secrets
   namespace: $GLOO_MESH_RELEASE_NAMESPACE
stringData:
  # If Redis doesn't have an explicit username, omit the username field.
  username: "$REDIS_UN"
  password: "$REDIS_PW"
EOF

Prepare the redis.auth section of the Helm values file that you previously retrieved.

  
redisStore:
  extAuthService:
    client:
      auth:
        # Enable authentication for Redis with the username and password in the referenced secret.
        enabled: true
        # The name of the secret in the same namespace as the management server.
        secretName: redis-auth-secrets
        # The key name in the data section of the Kubernetes secret
        # that has the password.
        passwordKey: password
        # The key name in the data section of the Kubernetes secret
        # that has the username.
        usernameKey: username

  
redisStore:
  insights:
    client:
      auth:
        # Enable authentication for Redis with the username and password in the referenced secret.
        enabled: true
        # The name of the secret in the same namespace as the management server.
        secretName: redis-auth-secrets
        # The key name in the data section of the Kubernetes secret
        # that has the password.
        passwordKey: password
        # The key name in the data section of the Kubernetes secret
        # that has the username.
        usernameKey: username

  
redisStore:
  rateLimiter:
    client:
      auth:
        # Enable authentication for Redis with the username and password in the referenced secret.
        enabled: true
        # The name of the secret in the same namespace as the management server.
        secretName: redis-auth-secrets
        # The key name in the data section of the Kubernetes secret
        # that has the password.
        passwordKey: password
        # The key name in the data section of the Kubernetes secret
        # that has the username.
        usernameKey: username

  
redisStore:
  snapshot:
    client:
      auth:
        # Enable authentication for Redis with the username and password in the referenced secret.
        enabled: true
        # The name of the secret in the same namespace as the management server.
        secretName: redis-auth-secrets
        # The key name in the data section of the Kubernetes secret
        # that has the password.
        passwordKey: password
        # The key name in the data section of the Kubernetes secret
        # that has the username.
        usernameKey: username

Step 5: Configure the telemetry pipeline

If you enable the insights engine and bring your own Redis instance, you must also update the Gloo telemetry pipeline installation in your Helm values file with the details for your Redis instance.

Update the telemetry collector section with the extra volumes that are required to bring your own Redis instance.

redis-certs secretName: If you use a TLS connection for Redis, update the redis-certs secretName field with the name of the secret that you created in a previous step.

  
telemetryCollector:
  enabled: true
  extraVolumes:
  - name: tls-keys
    projected:
      sources:
        - secret:
            name: gloo-telemetry-gateway-ca-certs
            optional: true
        - secret:
            name: gloo-telemetry-gateway-tls-secret
            optional: true
  - name: telemetry-configmap
    configMap:
      name: gloo-telemetry-gateway-config
      items:
        - key: relay
          path: relay.yaml
  - name: redis-certs
    secret:
      secretName: redis-certs
      optional: true
  extraVolumeMounts:                  
  - name: tls-keys
    readOnly: true
    mountPath: /etc/otel-certs
  - name: telemetry-configmap
    mountPath: /conf
  - mountPath: /etc/redis-certs
    name: redis-certs

Customize the telemetry collector with an extra exporter that sends data to your own Redis instance. The example includes required stream attributes. Update the following fields with the details of your Redis instance.
- endpoint: Provide the address to your own external Redis instance. For local instances in the cluster, this value is typically the Kubernetes service name that the Gloo component can access, such as my-redis.redis:6379.
- tls: Provide the details to use for the TLS connection. Include the key name in the data section of the redis-certs Kubernetes secret that has the CA certificate to use, such as ca.crt, that you previously mounted.
- username: If you use Redis auth password security, include the username in this field. If you do not have a username, omit this field.
- password: If you use Redis auth password security, include the password in this field.
```
  
telemetryCollectorCustomization:
  extraExporters:
    redisstream/ui:
      endpoint: <my-redis.redis:6379>
      expire: 30m
      stream: ui
      stream_attributes:
        resource_attributes:
          - cluster_name
          - source
          - component
          - k8s.pod.name
          - k8s.container.name
      tls:
        ca_file: /etc/redis-certs/ca.crt
        insecure: false
      username: <username>
      password: <password>
  
```
Multicluster setup: Update the telemetry collector section with the extra volumes that are required to bring your own Redis instance.
- redis-certs secretName: If you use a TLS connection for Redis, update the redis-certs secretName field with the name of the secret that you created in a previous step.
```
  
telemetryGateway:
  enabled: true
  extraVolumes:
  - name: redis-certs
    secret:
      secretName: redis-certs
      optional: true
  extraVolumeMounts:
  - mountPath: /etc/redis-certs
    name: redis-certs  
  
```
Customize the telemetry gateway with an extra exporter that sends data to your own Redis instance. The example includes required stream attributes and an example for AWS ElastiCache. Update the following fields with the details of your Redis instance.
- endpoint: Provide the address to your own external Redis instance. For local instances in the cluster, this value is typically the Kubernetes service name that the Gloo component can access, such as my-redis.redis:6379.
- tls: Provide the details to use for the TLS connection. Include the key name in the data section of the redis-certs Kubernetes secret that has the CA certificate to use, such as ca.crt, that you previously mounted.
- username: If you use Redis auth password security, include the username in this field. If you do not have a username, omit this field.
- password: If you use Redis auth password security, include the password in this field.
```
  
telemetryGatewayCustomization:
  extraExporters:
    redisstream/basic:
      endpoint: <my-redis.redis:6379>
      tls: {} 
      username: <username>
      password: <redis-password> 
    redisstream/ui:
      endpoint: <my-redis.redis:6379>
      expire: 30m
      stream: ui
      stream_attributes:
        resource_attributes:
          - cluster_name
          - source
          - component
          - k8s.pod.name
          - k8s.container.name
      tls:
        ca_file: /etc/redis-certs/ca.crt
        insecure: false
      username: <username>
      password: <password>
  
```

Now, the Gloo telemetry pipeline is ready to use your own Redis instance to store logs about the insights. Later, you can set up Istio insights to display in the Gloo UI by configuring the logs/analyzer pipeline in Gloo telemetry. For more information, see Add Istio insights.

Step 6: Configure API key details for the developer portal

If you use the developer portal, configure details related to storing API keys in the Redis instance for the external auth service. By default, the configuration that you set for redisStore.extAuthService is also used by the portal server. This way, the portal server can write API keys that protect the APIs exposed in the developer portal, and the external auth service can read the same API keys to authenticate requests.

redisStore.extAuthService.client.secretKey: Replace with a random string to use to hash the API keys that are stored in Redis. The example uses "ThisIsSecret".

  
redisStore:
  extAuthService:
    client:
      secretKey: "ThisIsSecret"

Step 7: Configure other Redis settings

Further configure the default Redis values. For specific fields and more information, check the Helm reference for each component of the redisStore section.

Common configuration sections include:

Client connection details, such as redirects, retries, and max connections.

Step 8: Install or upgrade with Helm

You can continue to install or upgrade Gloo Mesh Gateway to use your own Redis instance. Include the Helm values file that you prepared in the previous steps.

The following example commands are provided for quick reference. For more details, consult the install or upgrade guides.

  helm upgrade -i gloo-platform gloo-platform/gloo-platform \
 -n gloo-mesh \
 --version $GLOO_VERSION \
 --values gloo-single.yaml \
 --set common.cluster=$CLUSTER_NAME \
 --set licensing.glooMeshLicenseKey=$GLOO_MESH_LICENSE_KEY

  helm upgrade gloo-platform gloo-platform/gloo-platform \
  --namespace gloo-mesh \
  -f gloo-single.yaml \
  --version $GLOO_VERSION

Step 9: Verify the connection

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.

Install Redis in your cluster so that you can use the redis-cli to connect to your Redis instance.
Built-in Redis Your own local Redis Your own external Redis
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 ...
From your terminal, log in to the Redis pod and open a Redis CLI shell.
Built-in redisStore Built-in Redis for add-ons Your own local Redis Your own external Redis
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
  
```

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.

Install RedisInsights. The steps vary depending on where you want to install the app.
- On your local machine: Download RedisInsights.
- In your Kubernetes cluster: See the Redis docs.
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
  
```
Launch the RedisInsights app.
Click + Add Redis Database and enter in your localhost and port details, which by default are 127.0.0.1:6379.
Click the database that you just added.
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

* Redis is a registered trademark of Redis Ltd. Any rights therein are reserved to Redis Ltd. Any use by Solo.io, Inc. is for referential purposes only and does not indicate any sponsorship, endorsement or affiliation between Redis and Solo.io. ↩︎

Local Redis

About link

Step 1: Deploy Redis to your cluster link

Step 2: Get your Gloo environment details link

Installation link

Upgrade link

Step 3: Set up the Redis store link

Step 4: Set up Redis authentication link

TLS-encryption link

Password authentication link

Step 5: Configure the telemetry pipeline link

Step 6: Configure API key details for the developer portal link

Step 7: Configure other Redis settings link

Step 8: Install or upgrade with Helm link

Step 9: Verify the connection link

Redis CLI link

RedisInsights link