# Running Webdis and Redis in Docker Compose with SSL connections This page describes how to start Redis and Webdis in [Docker Compose](https://docs.docker.com/compose/), with secure connections between the two. ## Requirements For this, we'll need: 1. Docker Compose (you should have it if you use [Docker Desktop](https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop)) 2. Redis version 6 or newer (we'll use a Docker image) 3. Webdis version 0.1.18 or newer (also in a Docker image) 4. A client certificate and key 5. A CA certificate 6. The `openssl` command-line tool 7. Optionally, `curl` for downloading a few files We'll keep all our files together in a `playground` directory: ```shell mkdir playground cd playground ``` ## SSL configuration Let's start by generating the files required to encrypt connections. These instructions are adapted from the `Makefile` on [this page](https://nishanths.svbtle.com/setting-up-redis-with-tls). ### CA certificate First, the CA cert. Generate a key for it, and then the cert: ```shell openssl genrsa 4096 > ./ca.key openssl req -new -x509 -nodes -sha256 -key ./ca.key -days 3650 \ -subj "/C=AU/CN=example" -out ./ca.crt ``` ### Certificate Signing Request (CSR) Let's start with a custom OpenSSL config file (change the path from `/etc/ssl` if your `openssl.cnf` is located elsewhere, e.g. at `/etc/pki/tls/openssl.cnf` on Fedora). ```shell cp /etc/ssl/openssl.cnf . echo >> ./openssl.cnf echo '[ san_env ]' >> ./openssl.cnf echo 'subjectAltName = IP:127.0.0.1' >> ./openssl.cnf ```
If you can't find your openssl.cnf, click here to show a basic file you can use. Save the following block as `openssl.cnf` in your `playground` directory: ```ini [ req ] distinguished_name = req_distinguished_name attributes = req_attributes [ req_distinguished_name ] countryName = Country Name (2 letter code) countryName_min = 2 countryName_max = 2 stateOrProvinceName = State or Province Name (full name) localityName = Locality Name (eg, city) 0.organizationName = Organization Name (eg, company) organizationalUnitName = Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) commonName = Common Name (eg, fully qualified host name) commonName_max = 64 emailAddress = Email Address emailAddress_max = 64 [ req_attributes ] challengePassword = A challenge password challengePassword_min = 4 challengePassword_max = 20 [ san_env ] subjectAltName = IP:127.0.0.1 ```
Then we can create the CSR and key: ```shell export SAN='IP:127.0.0.1' openssl req -reqexts san_env -extensions san_env -config ./openssl.cnf \ -newkey rsa:4096 -nodes -sha256 -keyout ./redis.key \ -subj "/C=AU/CN=127.0.0.1" -out ./redis.csr ``` Make sure this command created `redis.key` and `redis.csr`. ### Certificate Finally, let's generate the certificate: ```shell openssl x509 -req -sha256 -extfile ./openssl.cnf -extensions san_env \ -days 3650 -in ./redis.csr -CA ./ca.crt -CAkey ./ca.key \ -CAcreateserial -out ./redis.crt ``` We should now have `ca.crt`, `redis.key`, and `redis.crt`. We'll need these 3 files to configure the encrypted connections between Webdis and Redis. The other files generated by `openssl` (`redis.csr` and `ca.key`) are not needed by Redis or Webdis. ## Docker Compose directory structure Let's start with the config files needed by Redis and Webdis; we'll keep them all in a local directory that is mounted by the containers. ```shell mkdir config cp ca.crt redis.key redis.crt ./config curl -sL -o ./config/webdis.json https://github.com/nicolasff/webdis/raw/0.1.22/webdis.json curl -sL -o ./config/redis.conf https://github.com/redis/redis/raw/7.0.10/redis.conf ``` If you don't have `curl`, use the two URLs above to fetch `webdis.json` and `redis.conf` and move them to the `config` directory under `playground`. ## Service configuration ### Webdis Edit `./config/webdis.json` and set: - `"redis_host"` to `"redis"` - `"redis_port"` to `6380` - `"logfile"` to `"/dev/stderr"` And add a key named `"ssl"` at the same depth as the two keys above (e.g. just under `"database": 0`), pointing to: ```json { "enabled": true, "ca_cert_bundle": "/config/ca.crt", "client_cert": "/config/redis.crt", "client_key": "/config/redis.key" }, ```
Click here to see what webdis.json should look like after these changes. ```json { "redis_host": "redis", "redis_port": 6380, "http_host": "0.0.0.0", "http_port": 7379, "threads": 5, "pool_size": 20, "daemonize": false, "websockets": false, "database": 0, "ssl": { "enabled": true, "ca_cert_bundle": "/config/ca.crt", "client_cert": "/config/redis.crt", "client_key": "/config/redis.key" }, "acl": [ { "disabled": ["DEBUG"] }, { "http_basic_auth": "user:password", "enabled": ["DEBUG"] } ], "verbosity": 4, "logfile": "/dev/stderr" } ```
If you have `jq` installed, you can validate that it is valid JSON with: ```shell jq empty ./config/webdis.json && echo 'VALID' || echo 'INVALID' ``` ### Redis Then, edit `./config/redis.conf` and uncomment the following configuration options and set their values as listed: - `tls-port 6380` (this should initially say `# tls-port 6379`, make sure to change the port number) - `tls-cert-file /config/redis.crt` - `tls-key-file /config/redis.key` - `tls-ca-cert-file /config/ca.crt` - `protected-mode no` Again, make sure to remove any leading `#` and spaces from these lines. For example, `tls-port` is originally commented out in `redis.conf` and looks like this: ``` # tls-port 6379 ``` Finally, change the line which starts with `bind` to: ``` bind 0.0.0.0 ``` You can also grab `redis.conf` from [this Gist](https://gist.github.com/nicolasff/513d3ebd9d6f4268d6deb1d979fa44b8) which contains a Redis 6.2.6 config file with the required changes. ## Docker Compose configuration Create a new file named `docker-compose.yml` in your `playground` directory, with the following contents: ```yaml services: webdis: image: nicolas/webdis:latest command: /usr/local/bin/webdis-ssl /config/webdis.json volumes: # mount volume containing the config files - ./config:/config networks: - secure depends_on: # make sure Redis starts first, so that Webdis can connect to it without retries - redis ports: # allow connections from the Docker host on localhost, port 7379 - "127.0.0.1:7379:7379" redis: image: redis:7.0.10 command: /usr/local/bin/redis-server /config/redis.conf volumes: # mount volume containing the config files - ./config:/config networks: - secure expose: # make the TLS port from Redis visible to Webdis - "6380" networks: secure: ``` This configures two services named `webdis` and `redis`, sharing a common network named `secure`. With the `expose` property Redis allows connections from Webdis on port 6380. Both containers mount the local `config` directory under `/config` and start their binaries using the configuration files we've just created and edited. Finally, Webdis also allows binds its (container) port 7379 to the hosts's loopback interface also on port 7379. This will let us run `curl` locally to connect to Webdis from the host. **Note:** While the Webdis Docker image does bundle a Redis binary, it makes more sense to use multiple containers to demonstrate the use of SSL connections. This bundled Redis service does not run in this example, since we replace the Webdis command with one that only starts Webdis instead of starting Redis and Webdis together in the same container. ## Start the Docker Compose stack From the `playground` directory, run: ```shell docker-compose up ``` You should see both services logging to the console in different colors, with an output like: ```none Creating playground_redis_1 ... done Creating playground_webdis_1 ... done Attaching to playground_redis_1, playground_webdis_1 redis_1 | 1:C 21 Aug 2023 01:42:49.704 # oO0OoO0OoO0Oo Redis is starting oO0OoO0OoO0Oo redis_1 | 1:C 21 Aug 2023 01:42:49.705 # Redis version=7.0.10, bits=64, commit=00000000, modified=0, pid=1, just started redis_1 | 1:C 21 Aug 2023 01:42:49.705 # Configuration loaded redis_1 | 1:M 21 Aug 2023 01:42:49.716 * monotonic clock: POSIX clock_gettime webdis_1 | [1] 21 Aug 01:42:51 I Webdis listening on port 7379 webdis_1 | [1] 21 Aug 01:42:51 I Webdis 0.1.22 up and running redis_1 | 1:M 21 Aug 2023 01:42:49.717 * Running mode=standalone, port=6379. redis_1 | 1:M 21 Aug 2023 01:42:49.717 # Server initialized redis_1 | 1:M 21 Aug 2023 01:42:49.718 * Ready to accept connections ``` You can now run commands against Webdis by connecting to port 7379 on `localhost`, e.g. ```sh $ curl -s http://localhost:7379/ping {"ping":[true,"PONG"]} $ curl -s http://localhost:7379/info.txt | grep uptime.in.seconds uptime_in_seconds:27 ``` ## Clean-up Stop the services with ctrl-c and remove the entire Docker Compose stack by running `docker-compose rm` from the `playground` directory.