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Athreya aka Maneshwar
Athreya aka Maneshwar

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Installing Redis 7.4 with Ansible & a Custom `redis.conf`

#webdev #programming #beginners #devops

Hi there! I'm Maneshwar. Right now, I’m building LiveAPI, a first-of-its-kind tool that helps you automatically index API endpoints across all your repositories. LiveAPI makes it easier to discover, understand, and interact with APIs in large infrastructures.

Redis is a high-performance in-memory key-value store.

If you're deploying it with Ansible and want full control over the version and configuration (including your own redis.conf), here's a clean and repeatable setup to automate the whole thing.

We’ll go from a blank Ansible structure to a fully provisioned Redis instance running version 7.4.1, with your custom config baked in.

Project Structure

We're using a standard Ansible role layout:

ansible/
├── ansible.cfg
├── db.yml
├── hosts.ini
└── roles/
    └── db/
        ├── tasks/
        │   ├── main.yml
        │   └── install_redis.yml
        ├── handlers/
        │   └── main.yml
        ├── templates/
        │   └── redis.conf.j2
        └── ...
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Step-by-Step

1. ansible.cfg

Make sure you have a minimal config:

[defaults]
# Use YAML for cleaner stdout/stderr formatting
stdout_callback = yaml
stderr_callback = yaml

# Path to inventory file
inventory = hosts.ini

# Skip SSH host key checking (useful for automation)
host_key_checking = False

# SSH connection timeout in seconds
timeout = 30

# Number of parallel hosts to configure at once
forks = 10

# Speed up Ansible by reusing SSH connections and avoiding sudo temp files
pipelining = True


[ssh_connection]
ssh_args = -o ControlMaster=auto -o ControlPersist=60s -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null
pipelining = True
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2. hosts.ini

Define your target host:

[db]
your-redis-host ansible_user=ubuntu
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Replace your-redis-host with the IP or hostname.

3. db.yml — Entry Playbook 

---
- name: Install Redis on DB hosts
  hosts: db
  become: yes
  roles:
    - db
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4. roles/db/tasks/main.yml 

---
- import_tasks: install_redis.yml
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5. roles/db/tasks/install_redis.yml

This handles installing Redis 7.4.1 via Redis’s official APT repo, plus pushing your custom config:

---
- name: Install required packages
  apt:
    name: ['lsb-release', 'curl', 'gpg']
    state: present
    update_cache: yes

- name: Add Redis GPG key
  shell: |
    curl -fsSL https://packages.redis.io/gpg | gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/redis-archive-keyring.gpg
  args:
    creates: /usr/share/keyrings/redis-archive-keyring.gpg

- name: Set permissions on GPG key
  file:
    path: /usr/share/keyrings/redis-archive-keyring.gpg
    mode: '0644'

- name: Add Redis APT repo
  copy:
    dest: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/redis.list
    content: "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/redis-archive-keyring.gpg] https://packages.redis.io/deb {{ ansible_lsb.codename }} main"

- name: Update APT
  apt:
    update_cache: yes

- name: Install Redis
  apt:
    name: redis
    state: present

- name: Copy custom redis.conf
  template:
    src: redis.conf.j2
    dest: /etc/redis/redis.conf
    owner: redis
    group: redis
    mode: '0644'
  notify: Restart Redis

- name: Enable Redis service
  systemd:
    name: redis-server
    enabled: yes

- name: Start Redis
  systemd:
    name: redis-server
    state: started
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6. roles/db/handlers/main.yml 

---
- name: Restart Redis
  systemd:
    name: redis-server
    state: restarted
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7. roles/db/templates/redis.conf.j2

This is your custom redis.conf. You can render variables in it using Jinja2, like:

bind 0.0.0.0
port 6379
requirepass {{ redis_password | default('changeme') }}
maxmemory 256mb
maxmemory-policy allkeys-lru
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You can move sensitive stuff (like redis_password) to defaults/main.yml or vault.

Running the Playbook 

ansible-playbook db.yml
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Verifying

SSH into your target host:

systemctl status redis-server
redis-cli -a changeme ping
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You should get:

PONG
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Bonus Tips

  • Pin exact Redis version by installing a .deb package or using apt-mark hold redis.
  • Add Redis log/config location to your monitoring tools.
  • Use Ansible Vault to store secrets (like the password).
  • Write a test playbook under roles/db/tests/test.yml to verify installation.

Final Thoughts

This setup gives you:

  • Precise version control with Redis’s upstream APT repo
  • Full override of redis.conf
  • Reusable, modular Ansible role

No surprises. No apt install redis-server with some random system default version. You’re in charge.

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