How To Start Logging With Redis

Redis is one of the most popular in-memory databases. Redis is a NoSQL database and is based on key-value storing. If you administrate applications and services, you typically want to discover information about the system service status. The logging of the application is the primary source of this information. Redis offers built-in support for logging with Syslog. Also, Redis offers a Docker image that sends logs into the Docker logging driver.

In this tutorial, you will do following actions:

• You will install the Redis server, and configure logging to the Syslog.
• You will view Redis logs in the Syslog by querying journalctl and also by viewing the log file itself.
• You will configure the Redis log rotation with the logrotate daemon.
• You will download the Redis Docker image, run it in the container and view the Docker logs related to this container.

Prerequisites

You will need:

• Ubuntu 20.04 distribution including the non-root user with sudo access.
• You should understand the basics of Docker and Syslog

Step 1  — Configuring Logging with Syslog

Redis logs can be maintained through the Syslog, which is a logging daemon for Linux that can maintain logs from multiple sources. Syslog allows forwarding all logs, from different sources, to the centralised logging server for further processing (How to Configure Centralised Rsyslog Server). On the other hand, if the Syslog maintains too many logs, then it could cause a system performance decrease.

In this step, we will configure the Redis server logging into the Syslog.

Installing Redis

First of all, let's install the Redis server. Ubuntu 20.04 includes the Redis package in the default apt repositories (installation requires sudo privilege):

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install redis-server

The first command will update Ubuntu repositories, and the second will download and install required packages for the Redis server.

Configuring Logging to the Syslog

Redis server configuration is defined in the file /etc/redis/redis.conf. Let's open this file with your text editor (sudo required for the file modification):

$ sudo nano /etc/redis/redis.conf

The file contains following lines that defines log destination:

# Specify the log file name. Also the empty string can be used to force
# Redis to log on the standard output. Note that if you use standard
# output for logging but daemonize, logs will be sent to /dev/null
logfile /var/log/redis/redis-server.log

# To enable logging to the system logger, just set 'syslog-enabled' to yes,
# and optionally update the other syslog parameters to suit your needs.
# syslog-enabled no

# Specify the syslog identity.
# syslog-ident redis

The directive logfile defines the name and directory of the log file. the default configuration stores log into the directory /var/log. This is a standard directory for the Syslog logging, and Syslog maintains all logs in this directory by default, so we won't change this value. The directive syslog-enabled is commented-out. You can uncomment this line, and set the value to yes if you want to start logging into the Syslog. At last, you can uncomment the directive syslog-ident, and set it to the program name. This string will be prepended to every Syslog record.

Edited file will looks like following:

# Specify the log file name. Also the empty string can be used to force
# Redis to log on the standard output. Note that if you use standard
# output for logging but daemonize, logs will be sent to /dev/null
logfile /var/log/redis/redis-server.log

# To enable logging to the system logger, just set 'syslog-enabled' to yes,
# and optionally update the other syslog parameters to suit your needs.
syslog-enabled yes

# Specify the syslog identity.
syslog-ident redis

Now, you can save and close the file.

At last, if you want to immediately apply the new configuration, you must restart the Redis server with systemctl (sudo required):

$ sudo systemctl restart redis

The option restart redis determines to restart Redis service. At this point, your Redis server logs to the Syslog.

Step 2 — Viewing Syslog Logs

There are two basic command-line possibilities if you want to view the Syslog records related to the Redis:

• View the Syslog by querying journactl.
• View the Redis log file itself.

Querying Journalctl

The journald is a service included in systemd (Ubuntu is systemd OS) that controls all logs. The journald offers command-line utility journalctl, that query Syslog records by different filters, and displays them. If you configure your Redis server to log into the Syslog, then you can view the Syslog records related to the Redis service with journalctl:

$ journalctl -u redis-server.service

The option -u determines to show only Syslog records that belong to the redis-server.service (the system name of the Redis service). You'll see the program's output appear on the screen:

Output
Jun 23 08:38:24 alice redis-server[205912]: oO0OoO0OoO0Oo Redis is starting oO0OoO0OoO0Oo
Jun 23 08:38:24 alice redis-server[205912]: Redis version=5.0.7, bits=64, commit=00000000, modified=0, pid=205912, just started
Jun 23 08:38:24 alice redis-server[205912]: Configuration loaded
Jun 23 08:38:24 alice systemd[1]: redis-server.service: Can't open PID file /run/redis/redis-server.pid (yet?) after start: Ope>
Jun 23 08:38:24 alice redis[205915]:                 _._
                                                    _.-``__ ''-._
                                               _.-``    `.  `_.  ''-._           Redis 5.0.7 (00000000/0) 64 bit
                                           .-`` .-```.  ```\\/    _.,_ ''-._
                                          (    '      ,       .-`  | `,    )     Running in standalone mode
                                          |`-._`-...-` __...-.``-._|'` _.-'|     Port: 6379
                                          |    `-._   `._    /     _.-'    |     PID: 205915
                                           `-._    `-._  `-./  _.-'    _.-'
                                          |`-._`-._    `-.__.-'    _.-'_.-'|
                                          |    `-._`-._        _.-'_.-'    |           <http://redis.io>
                                           `-._    `-._`-.__.-'_.-'    _.-'
                                          |`-._`-._    `-.__.-'    _.-'_.-'|
                                          |    `-._`-._        _.-'_.-'    |
                                           `-._    `-._`-.__.-'_.-'    _.-'
                                               `-._    `-.__.-'    _.-'
                                                   `-._        _.-'
                                                       `-.__.-'
Jun 23 08:38:24 alice redis[205915]: Server initialized
Jun 23 08:38:24 alice redis[205915]: WARNING overcommit_memory is set to 0! Background save may fail under low memory condition>
Jun 23 08:38:24 alice redis[205915]: WARNING you have Transparent Huge Pages (THP) support enabled in your kernel. This will cr>
Jun 23 08:38:24 alice redis[205915]: DB loaded from disk: 0.000 seconds
Jun 23 08:38:24 alice redis[205915]: Ready to accept connections
Jun 23 08:38:24 alice systemd[1]: Started Advanced key-value store.

The output shows all Syslog records related to the Redis. You can see that it informs about recent server restart and warn about some optimisations that could cause problems.

Viewing Log File

Alternatively, to journactl, you can view the Redis log file itself, because the Redis stores all messages into the Syslog, but also into the custom file. In the previous step, we specified to store Redis logs into the file /var/log/redis/redis-server.log. You can view this file by executing cat:

cat /var/log/redis/redis-server.log

The cat utility print the content of the file on the standard output. You'll see the program's output appear on the screen:

Output
205912:C 23 Jun 2021 08:38:24.512 # oO0OoO0OoO0Oo Redis is starting oO0OoO0OoO0Oo
205912:C 23 Jun 2021 08:38:24.512 # Redis version=5.0.7, bits=64, commit=00000000, modified=0, pid=205912, just started
205912:C 23 Jun 2021 08:38:24.512 # Configuration loaded
                _._
           _.-``__ ''-._
      _.-``    `.  `_.  ''-._           Redis 5.0.7 (00000000/0) 64 bit
  .-`` .-```.  ```\\/    _.,_ ''-._
 (    '      ,       .-`  | `,    )     Running in standalone mode
 |`-._`-...-` __...-.``-._|'` _.-'|     Port: 6379
 |    `-._   `._    /     _.-'    |     PID: 205915
  `-._    `-._  `-./  _.-'    _.-'
 |`-._`-._    `-.__.-'    _.-'_.-'|
 |    `-._`-._        _.-'_.-'    |           <http://redis.io>
  `-._    `-._`-.__.-'_.-'    _.-'
 |`-._`-._    `-.__.-'    _.-'_.-'|
 |    `-._`-._        _.-'_.-'    |
  `-._    `-._`-.__.-'_.-'    _.-'
      `-._    `-.__.-'    _.-'
          `-._        _.-'
              `-.__.-'

205915:M 23 Jun 2021 08:38:24.515 # Server initialized
205915:M 23 Jun 2021 08:38:24.515 # WARNING overcommit_memory is set to 0! Background save may fail under low memory condition. To fix this issue add 'vm.overcommit_memory = 1' to /etc/sysctl.conf and then reboot or run the command 'sysctl vm.overcommit_memory=1' for this to take effect.
205915:M 23 Jun 2021 08:38:24.515 # WARNING you have Transparent Huge Pages (THP) support enabled in your kernel. This will create latency and memory usage issues with Redis. To fix this issue run the command 'echo never > /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled' as root, and add it to your /etc/rc.local in order to retain the setting after a reboot. Redis must be restarted after THP is disabled.
205915:M 23 Jun 2021 08:38:24.515 * DB loaded from disk: 0.000 seconds
205915:M 23 Jun 2021 08:38:24.515 * Ready to accept connections

The output shows the same records as the journalctl, but with a different timestamp format and without some metadata header include in the Syslog (name of the process and others).

Step 3 — Configuring Logrotation

The log files size must be controlled because their size always grows over time. Linux solves this problem with a concept called log rotation. In this step, we will configure log rotation for Redis with Syslog. For further information about log rotation, read the tutorial How to Manage Logs with Logrotate on Ubuntu 20.04.

The Syslog includes a daemon Logrotate that maintains all logs rotation. Ubuntu 20.04 uses Logrotate by default (including Redis log rotation if installed). Logrotate configuration for the Redis log rotation is defined in the file /etc/logrotate.d/redis-server. Let's open this file (sudo required for the file editing):

$ sudo nano /etc/logrotate.d/redis-server

The file contains following lines that defines log rotation for the Redis server:

/var/log/redis/redis-server*.log {
        weekly
        missingok
        rotate 12
        compress
        notifempty
}

The directives in the curly brackets define how to rotate the log in the directory defined above them. The file defines that Redis rotate logs with the following settings:

• weekly: Logs are rotated every week. Alternatively, you can specify another time interval (daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly). You can also specify to rotate every hour (hourly), but note that the logrotate daemon runs daily. In such a case, you have to change the logrotate cron job interval to be able to really rotate logs hourly.
• missingok: Daemon do not report any error if the log file is missing.
• rotate 12: Log files are rotated 12 times before being removed. If rotate is set to 0 then old versions are removed rather than rotated.
• compress: Old versions of log files are compressed with gzip by default.
• notifempty: Do not rotate the log if it is empty.

All possible directives are described in logrotate manual pages. You can see them by executing man logrotate. You can change these settings, remove some of them, or add another. The specific configuration is up to you. When you edit settings that match your use case, you can save and close the file. Now, your Redis logs will be rotated periodically with Logrotate.

Step 4 — Logging Redis with Docker

In case that you want to run the Redis inside a Docker container, you must use some Docker logging driver for the Redis log maintenance. You can read all about the Docker logging driver in the tutorial How to Start Logging With Docker.

Downloading Redis Container

Let's use the docker pull command with the image name redis to retrieve an official Redis image from Docker Hub (sudo required):

$ sudo docker pull redis

You'll see the program's output appear on the screen:

Output
Using default tag: latest
latest: Pulling from library/redis
69692152171a: Already exists
a4a46f2fd7e0: Pull complete
bcdf6fddc3bd: Pull complete
2902e41faefa: Pull complete
df3e1d63cdb1: Pull complete
fa57f005a60d: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:7c80c223cf11e43f2184492354a737fb08af55e228d342b3e87dc2fa0e73a8e7
Status: Downloaded newer image for redis:latest
docker.io/library/redis:latest

The output shows that you fetch an image, and Docker stores it locally and makes it available for running containers.

Running Container and Viewing Log

Now, you can start the Redis container by executing docker run command (sudo required):

$ sudo docker run -d -p 24224:24224 --name my-redis redis

Option -d runs the container in the background and print container ID (typical usage for database server). The option -p 24224:24224 maps port 24224 in the container to port 24224 on your computer. Option --name my-redis determines the name of the container to my-redis.

If you want to view the log of Redis container, you can execute docker logs with container name (sudo required):

$ sudo docker logs my-redis

You'll see the program's output appear on the screen:

Output
1:C 23 Jun 2021 11:22:49.917 # oO0OoO0OoO0Oo Redis is starting oO0OoO0OoO0Oo
1:C 23 Jun 2021 11:22:49.917 # Redis version=6.2.4, bits=64, commit=00000000, modified=0, pid=1, just started
1:C 23 Jun 2021 11:22:49.917 # Warning: no config file specified, using the default config. In order to specify a config file use redis-server /path/to/redis.conf
1:M 23 Jun 2021 11:22:49.918 * monotonic clock: POSIX clock_gettime
1:M 23 Jun 2021 11:22:49.918 * Running mode=standalone, port=6379.
1:M 23 Jun 2021 11:22:49.918 # Server initialized
1:M 23 Jun 2021 11:22:49.918 # WARNING overcommit_memory is set to 0! Background save may fail under low memory condition. To fix this issue add 'vm.overcommit_memory = 1' to /etc/sysctl.conf and then reboot or run the command 'sysctl vm.overcommit_memory=1' for this to take effect.
1:M 23 Jun 2021 11:22:49.919 * Ready to accept connections

The output shows log records related to Redis that informs about service starting and initialisation. You can see that the Docker log is similar to the Syslog log.

Because this container is the background process, you must stop it by executing docker rm --force (sudo required). Otherwise, it will keep running on background of your computer.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you installed the Redis server, and configured the Syslog logging. You viewed Redis logs in the Syslog by querying journalctl and also by viewing the log file itself. You configured the Redis log rotation with the logrotate daemon. You downloaded the Redis Docker image, ran it in the container and viewed the Docker logs related to this container.

Article by

Jenda Tovarys

Jenda leads Growth at Better Stack. For the past 5 years, Jenda has been writing about exciting learnings from working with hundreds of developers across the world. When he's not spreading the word about the amazing software built at Better Stack, he enjoys traveling, hiking, reading, and playing tennis.

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