# 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/0.1.18/webdis.json
curl -sL -o ./config/redis.conf https://github.com/redis/redis/raw/6.2.6/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 lines and set their values as listed:

- `tls-port 6380` (on line 145, this should initially say `# tls-port 6379`, make sure to change the port number)
- `tls-cert-file /config/redis.crt` (on line 151)
- `tls-key-file /config/redis.key` (on line 152)
- `tls-ca-cert-file /config/ca.crt` (on line 184)

Then change line 75 which starts with `bind`, so that it looks like this:

```
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:0.1.18
    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:6.2.6
    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 23 Oct 2021 01:42:49.704 # oO0OoO0OoO0Oo Redis is starting oO0OoO0OoO0Oo
redis_1   | 1:C 23 Oct 2021 01:42:49.705 # Redis version=6.2.6, bits=64, commit=00000000, modified=0, pid=1, just started
redis_1   | 1:C 23 Oct 2021 01:42:49.705 # Configuration loaded
redis_1   | 1:M 23 Oct 2021 01:42:49.716 * monotonic clock: POSIX clock_gettime
webdis_1  | [1] 23 Oct 01:42:51 I Webdis listening on port 7379
webdis_1  | [1] 23 Oct 01:42:51 I Webdis 0.1.18 up and running
redis_1   | 1:M 23 Oct 2021 01:42:49.717 * Running mode=standalone, port=6379.
redis_1   | 1:M 23 Oct 2021 01:42:49.717 # Server initialized
redis_1   | 1:M 23 Oct 2021 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' | jq -r .info.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.
