Create and Connect to a Redis cluster

This tutorial shows how to create and connect to a Redis cluster.

Create a Redis cluster

Before you start

• Install kbcli if you want to create a Redis cluster by kbcli.

• Install KubeBlocks by kbcli or by Helm.

• Make sure the Redis Addon is enabled. The Redis Addon is enabled by KubeBlocks by default. If you disable it when installing KubeBlocks, enable it first.

  kbcli

  kbcli addon list
  >
  NAME                      TYPE   STATUS     EXTRAS         AUTO-INSTALL   
  ...
  redis                     Helm   Enabled                   true
  ...

  kubectl

  kubectl get addons.extensions.kubeblocks.io redis
  >
  NAME      TYPE   VERSION   PROVIDER   STATUS    AGE
  redis     Helm                        Enabled   61m

• View all the database types and versions available for creating a cluster.

  kbcli

  kbcli clusterdefinition list
  >
  NAME               TOPOLOGIES                                              SERVICEREFS   STATUS      AGE
  redis              replication,replication-twemproxy,standalone                          Available   16m
  
  kbcli clusterversion list
  >
  NAME                 CLUSTER-DEFINITION   STATUS      IS-DEFAULT   CREATED-TIME
  redis-7.0.6          redis                Available   false        Sep 27,2024 11:36 UTC+0800
  redis-7.2.4          redis                Available   false        Sep 27,2024 11:36 UTC+0800

  kubectl

  kubectl get clusterdefinition redis
  >
  NAME    TOPOLOGIES                                              SERVICEREFS   STATUS      AGE
  redis   replication,replication-twemproxy,standalone                          Available   16m

  kubectl get clusterversions -l clusterdefinition.kubeblocks.io/name=redis
  >
  NAME          CLUSTER-DEFINITION   STATUS      AGE
  redis-7.0.6   redis                Available   16m
  redis-7.2.4   redis                Available   16m

• To keep things isolated, create a separate namespace called demo throughout this tutorial.

  kubectl create namespace demo
  >
  namespace/demo created

Create a cluster

KubeBlocks supports creating two types of Redis clusters: Standalone and Replication Cluster. Standalone only supports one replica and can be used in scenarios with lower requirements for availability. For scenarios with high availability requirements, it is recommended to create a Replication Cluster, which supports automatic failover. To ensure high availability, Primary and Secondary are distributed on different nodes by default.

kbcli

1. Create an Redis cluster.

   kbcli cluster create redis mycluster -n demo

   If you want to customize your cluster specifications, kbcli provides various options, such as setting cluster version, termination policy, CPU, and memory. You can view these options by adding --help or -h flag.

   kbcli cluster create redis --help
   
   kbcli cluster create redis -h

2. Verify whether this cluster is created successfully.

   kbcli cluster list -n demo
   >
   NAME        NAMESPACE   CLUSTER-DEFINITION   VERSION   TERMINATION-POLICY   STATUS     CREATED-TIME
   mycluster   demo        redis                          Delete               Running    Sep 29,2024 09:46 UTC+0800

kubectl

KubeBlocks implements a Cluster CRD to define a cluster. Here is an example of creating a Standalone.

cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -f -
apiVersion: apps.kubeblocks.io/v1alpha1
kind: Cluster
metadata:
  name: mycluster
  namespace: default
spec:
  clusterDefinitionRef: redis
  clusterVersionRef: redis-7.0.6
  terminationPolicy: Delete
  affinity:
    podAntiAffinity: Preferred
    topologyKeys:
    - kubernetes.io/hostname
  tolerations:
    - key: kb-data
      operator: Equal
      value: 'true'
      effect: NoSchedule
  componentSpecs:
  - name: redis
    componentDefRef: redis
    replicas: 1
    disableExporter: true
    enabledLogs:
    - running
    serviceAccountName: kb-redis-cluster
    resources:
      limits:
        cpu: '0.5'
        memory: 0.5Gi
      requests:
        cpu: '0.5'
        memory: 0.5Gi
    volumeClaimTemplates:
    - name: data
      spec:
        accessModes:
        - ReadWriteOnce
        resources:
          requests:
            storage: 20Gi
EOF

Field	Definition
spec.clusterDefinitionRef	It specifies the name of the ClusterDefinition for creating a specific type of cluster.
spec.clusterVersionRef	It is the name of the cluster version CRD that defines the cluster version.
spec.terminationPolicy	It is the policy of cluster termination. The default value is Delete. Valid values are DoNotTerminate, Delete, WipeOut. For the detailed definition, you can refer to Termination Policy.
spec.affinity	It defines a set of node affinity scheduling rules for the cluster's Pods. This field helps control the placement of Pods on nodes within the cluster.
spec.affinity.podAntiAffinity	It specifies the anti-affinity level of Pods within a component. It determines how pods should spread across nodes to improve availability and performance.
spec.affinity.topologyKeys	It represents the key of node labels used to define the topology domain for Pod anti-affinity and Pod spread constraints.
spec.tolerations	It is an array that specifies tolerations attached to the cluster's Pods, allowing them to be scheduled onto nodes with matching taints.
spec.componentSpecs	It is the list of components that define the cluster components. This field allows customized configuration of each component within a cluster.
spec.componentSpecs.componentDefRef	It is the name of the component definition that is defined in the cluster definition and you can get the component definition names with kubectl get clusterdefinition redis -o json \| jq '.spec.componentDefs[].name'.
spec.componentSpecs.name	It specifies the name of the component.
spec.componentSpecs.disableExporter	It defines whether the monitoring function is enabled.
spec.componentSpecs.replicas	It specifies the number of replicas of the component.
spec.componentSpecs.resources	It specifies the resource requirements of the component.

Run the following command to see the created Redis cluster object:

kubectl get cluster mycluster -n demo -o yaml

Connect to a Redis Cluster

kbcli

kbcli cluster connect mycluster -n demo

kubectl

You can use kubectl exec to exec into a Pod and connect to a database.

KubeBlocks operator has created a new Secret called mycluster-conn-credential to store the connection credential of the Redis cluster. This secret contains the following keys:

• username: the root username of the Redis cluster.
• password: the password of the root user.
• port: the port of the Redis cluster.
• host: the host of the Redis cluster.
• endpoint: the endpoint of the Redis cluster and it is the same as host:port.

1. Get the username and password for the kubectl exec command.

   kubectl get secrets -n demo mycluster-redis-account-default -o jsonpath='{.data.username}' | base64 -d
   >
   default
   
   kubectl get secrets -n demo mycluster-redis-account-default -o jsonpath='{.data.password}' | base64 -d
   >
   5bv7czc4

2. Exec into the pod mycluster-redis-0 and connect to the database using username and password.

   kubectl exec -ti -n demo mycluster-redis-0 -- bash
   
   root@mycluster-redis-0:/# redis-cli -a 5bv7czc4  --user default

port-forward

You can also port forward the service to connect to the database from your local machine.

1. Run the following command to port forward the service.

   kubectl port-forward -n demo svc/mycluster-redis 6379:6379

2. Open a new terminal and run the following command to connect to the database.

   root@mycluster-redis-0:/# redis-cli -a 5bv7czc4  --user default

For the detailed database connection guide, refer to Connect database.