Introduction

Redis is an in-memory, NoSQL, key-value cache and store that can also be persisted to disk. It was designed for use by trusted clients in a trusted environment, with no robust security features of its own. To underscore that point, here's a quote from the official Redis website:

Redis is designed to be accessed by trusted clients inside trusted environments. This means that usually it is not a good idea to expose the Redis instance directly to the internet or, in general, to an environment where untrusted clients can directly access the Redis TCP port or UNIX socket.

. . .

In general, Redis is not optimized for maximum security but for maximum performance and simplicity.

Despite this, Redis does have a few basic security features built into it. These include the ability to create a unencrypted password and the freedom to rename and disable commands. Notably, it lacks a true access control system.

These features cannot, on their own, ensure the security of your Redis Installation. However, configuring them is still a big step up from leaving your database completely unsecured.

In this tutorial, you'll read how to configure the few security features Redis has, and make a few changes to your system’s configuration which will boost the security posture of a standalone Redis installation on an Ubuntu server.

Note that this guide does not address situations where the Redis server and the client applications are on different hosts or in different data centers. Installations where Redis traffic has to traverse an insecure or untrusted network require an entirely different set of configurations, such as setting up an SSL proxy or a VPN between the Redis machines, in addition to the ones given here.

Prerequisites

For this tutorial, you'll need:

• An Ubuntu 18.04 server. This server should also have a non-root user with sudo privileges as well as a firewall set up with UFW, which you can configure by following our Initial Server Setup Guide for Ubuntu 18.04.

• Redis installed and configured on your server. You can set this up by following this guide for Ubuntu 18.04 servers.

Step 1 — Verifying that Redis is Running

First, SSH in to your server with your non-root user.

To check that Redis is working, open up a Redis command line with the redis-cli command:

redis-cli

auth your_redis_password

Output
OK

Test the connection with the ping command:

ping

If Redis is working correctly, you will see the following:

Output
PONG

Following this, exit the Redis command line:

quit

Now that you’ve confirmed that Redis is running and working correctly, you can move on to the most important step for enhancing your server’s security: configuring a firewall.

Step 2 — Securing the Server with UFW

Redis is just an application that's running on your server. Because it has only a few fundamental security features of its own, the first step to truly securing it is to secure the server it’s running on. In the case of a public-facing server like your Ubuntu 18.04 server, configuring a firewall as described in the Initial Server Setup Guide for Ubuntu 18.04 is that first step. Follow that link and set up your firewall now if you haven’t already done so.

If you aren’t sure whether you set up a firewall or if it’s active, you can check this by running the following:

sudo ufw status

If you followed the Initial Server Setup Guide for Ubuntu 18.04, you will see the following output:

Output
Status: active

To                         Action      From
--                         ------      ----
OpenSSH                    ALLOW       Anywhere                  
OpenSSH (v6)               ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             

If you've implemented the firewall rules using that guide, then you do not need to add an extra rule for Redis because, by default, UFW drops all incoming traffic unless it is explicitly allowed. Since a default standalone installation of the Redis server is listening only on the loopback interface (127.0.0.1, or localhost), there should be no concern for incoming traffic on its default port.

For more information on how to add rules, please see this guide on common UFW rules and commands.

Step 3 — Binding to localhost

By default, Redis is only accessible from localhost. However, if you followed a different tutorial to configure Redis than the one given in the prerequisites section, you might have updated the configuration file to allow connections from anywhere. This is not as secure as binding to localhost.

Open the Redis configuration file for editing:

sudo nano /etc/redis/redis.conf

Locate this line and make sure it is uncommented (remove the # if it exists):

bind 127.0.0.1

Save and close the file when finished (press CTRL + X, Y, then ENTER).

Then, restart the service to ensure that systemd reads your changes:

sudo systemctl restart redis

To check that this change has gone into effect, run the following netstat command:

sudo netstat -lnp | grep redis

Output
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:6379          0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      2855/redis-server 1

This output shows that the redis-server program is bound to localhost (127.0.0.1), reflecting the change you just made to the configuration file. If you see another IP address in that column (0.0.0.0, for example), then you should double check that you uncommented the correct line and restart the Redis service again.

Now that your Redis installation is only listening in on localhost, it will be more difficult for malicious actors to make requests or gain access to your server. However, Redis isn’t currently set to require users to authenticate themselves before making changes to its configuration or the data it holds. To remedy this, Redis allows you to require users to authenticate with a password before making changes via the Redis client (redis-cli).

Step 4 — Configuring a Redis Password

Configuring a Redis password enables one of its two built-in security features — the auth command, which requires clients to authenticate to access the database. The password is configured directly in Redis's configuration file, /etc/redis/redis.conf, so open that file again with your preferred editor:

sudo nano /etc/redis/redis.conf

Scroll to the SECURITY section and look for a commented directive that reads:

# requirepass foobared

Uncomment it by removing the #, and change foobared to a secure password.

# Warning: since Redis is pretty fast an outside user can try up to
# 150k passwords per second against a good box. This means that you should
# use a very strong password otherwise it will be very easy to break.
#

openssl rand 60 | openssl base64 -A

Output
RBOJ9cCNoGCKhlEBwQLHri1g+atWgn4Xn4HwNUbtzoVxAYxkiYBi7aufl4MILv1nxBqR4L6NNzI0X6cE

/etc/redis/redis.conf
requirepass RBOJ9cCNoGCKhlEBwQLHri1g+atWgn4Xn4HwNUbtzoVxAYxkiYBi7aufl4MILv1nxBqR4L6NNzI0X6cE

After setting the password, save the file, and restart Redis:

sudo systemctl restart redis.service

To test that the password works, access the Redis command line:

redis-cli

The following shows a sequence of commands used to test whether the Redis password works. The first command tries to set a key to a value before authentication:

set key1 10

That won't work because you didn’t authenticate, so Redis returns an error:

Output
(error) NOAUTH Authentication required.

The next command authenticates with the password specified in the Redis configuration file:

auth your_redis_password

Redis acknowledges:

Output
OK

After that, running the previous command again will succeed:

set key1 10

Output
OK

get key1 queries Redis for the value of the new key.

get key1

Output
"10"

After confirming that you’re able to run commands in the Redis client after authenticating, you can exit the redis-cli:

quit

Next, we'll look at renaming Redis commands which, if entered by mistake or by a malicious actor, could cause serious damage to your machine.

Step 5 — Renaming Dangerous Commands

The other security feature built into Redis involves renaming or completely disabling certain commands that are considered dangerous.

When run by mistake or by unauthorized users, such commands can be used to reconfigure, destroy, or otherwise wipe your data. Like the authentication password, renaming or disabling commands is configured in the same SECURITY section of the /etc/redis/redis.conf file.

Some of the commands that are considered dangerous include: FLUSHDB, FLUSHALL, KEYS, PEXPIRE, DEL, CONFIG, SHUTDOWN, BGREWRITEAOF, BGSAVE, SAVE, SPOP, SREM, RENAME, and DEBUG. This is not a comprehensive list, but renaming or disabling all of the commands in that list is a good starting point for enhancing your Redis server’s security.

Whether you should disable or rename a command depends on your specific needs or those of your site. If you know you will never use a command that could be abused, then you may disable it. Otherwise, it could be in your best interest to rename it.

To enable or disable Redis commands, open the configuration file once more:

sudo nano  /etc/redis/redis.conf

Warning: The following steps showing how to disable and rename commands are examples. You should only choose to disable or rename the commands that make sense for you. You can review the full list of commands for yourself and determine how they might be misused at redis.io/commands.

To disable a command, simply rename it to an empty string (signified by a pair of quotation marks with no other characters between them), as shown below:

. . .
# It is also possible to completely kill a command by renaming it into
# an empty string:
#
rename-command FLUSHDB ""
rename-command FLUSHALL ""
rename-command DEBUG ""
. . .

To rename a command, give it another name as shown in the examples below. Renamed commands should be difficult for others to guess, but easy for you to remember:

. . .
rename-command CONFIG ""
rename-command SHUTDOWN SHUTDOWN_MENOT
rename-command CONFIG ASC12_CONFIG
. . .

Save your changes and close the file.

After renaming a command, apply the change by restarting Redis:

sudo systemctl restart redis.service

To test the new command, enter the Redis command line:

redis-cli

Next, authenticate:

auth your_redis_password

Output
OK

Let’s assume that you renamed the CONFIG command to ASC12_CONFIG, as in the preceding example. First, try using the original CONFIG command. It should fail, because you’ve renamed it:

config get requirepass

Output
(error) ERR unknown command 'config'

Calling the renamed command, however, will be successful. It is not case-sensitive:

asc12_config get requirepass

Output
1) "requirepass"
2) "your_redis_password"

Finally, you can exit from redis-cli:

exit

Note that if you're already using the Redis command line and then restart Redis, you'll need to re-authenticate. Otherwise, you'll get this error if you type a command:

Output
NOAUTH Authentication required.

Conclusion

Keep in mind that once someone is logged in to your server, it's very easy to circumvent the Redis-specific security features we've put in place. Therefore, the most important security feature is your firewall, which makes it extremely difficult for malicious actors to jump that fence.

If you're attempting to secure Redis communication across an untrusted network you'll have to employ an SSL proxy, as recommended by Redis developers in the official Redis security guide.