Deploy Redis

Redis for railway.app

Redis is an open-source, in-memory data store used as a database, cache, message broker, and queue, prized for its speed and simple key-value model with support for richer structures like lists, sets, and hashes. This template deploys Redis 8 on Railway using the official Docker image, with append-only persistence and password authentication enabled by default.

🏗️ Architecture

flowchart LR
    Client(["📦 App / Client"]) -->|"Redis Protocol"| Proxy["Railway TCP Proxy"]
    Proxy -->|"$PORT → 6379"| App["Container\nredis:8-alpine\n(--appendonly yes)"]
    App --> Volume[("Volume\n/data")]

Environment variables

REDIS_PASSWORD=replace-with-strong-password

REDIS_PASSWORD is required. The server is started with --requirepass "$REDIS_PASSWORD", so Redis will not accept unauthenticated connections — set it as a generated secret in the Railway dashboard before deploying. Clients must authenticate with AUTH $REDIS_PASSWORD (or redis-cli -a "$REDIS_PASSWORD").

Persistence

railway.toml declares requiredMountPath = "/data" for AOF/RDB files (append-only is enabled). Attach a Railway volume to that path before production traffic — Railway will prompt for it based on this setting, but it is not created automatically.

Health check

The Dockerfile defines a HEALTHCHECK that runs redis-cli -a "$REDIS_PASSWORD" ping on an interval, since Redis has no HTTP endpoint to probe.

Upgrading from Redis 7.x to 8

Template releases from 0.2.0 on ship Redis 8 (redis:8.x-alpine); 0.1.x shipped Redis 7.4. Existing volumes need no migration. On first start, Redis 8 loads the existing AOF/RDB files from /data as they are. This was tested with 7.4.12 → 8.10.3 using AOF (base RDB + incremental AOF): strings, hashes incl. per-field TTLs (HEXPIRE), lists, sets, sorted sets, streams, HyperLogLog, bitmaps and key TTLs were preserved.

Recommended steps:

1. Take a backup first: run redis-cli -a "$REDIS_PASSWORD" BGSAVE, then copy /data (or create a Railway volume backup).
2. Deploy the new template version and check redis-cli -a "$REDIS_PASSWORD" INFO server | grep redis_version and DBSIZE.

Downgrade warning

You cannot go back from 8 to 7.4 with the same volume. As soon as Redis 8 rewrites its files (AOF rewrite, BGSAVE, or a regular snapshot), it writes RDB format version 15. Redis 7.4 refuses to start with Can't handle RDB format version 15. That is a startup error and it does not touch the data, but you would need to roll forward to 8 again. If you must stay on 7.4, keep the volume backup from step 1 and pin template release 0.1.x (FROM redis:7.4.12-alpine).

Licensing change

Redis 7.4 is available under RSALv2 or SSPLv1. From Redis 8.0, Redis is tri-licensed: AGPLv3, RSALv2 or SSPLv1, and you choose one. Running it unmodified as the database of your own application is normally fine under any of them. If you offer Redis itself as a service to third parties, or modify and distribute it, check the obligations of the license you pick (for example, AGPLv3 §13 source-offer requirements). See redis.io/legal/licenses. This template only contains the official image and a start command; the template files in this repository keep their own license.

Local

docker build -t railwayapp-redis .
docker run --rm -e REDIS_PASSWORD=dev-password -p 6379:6379 railwayapp-redis

💬 Support

Questions or feedback? Visit the template forum on Railway Central Station.