Name

lua-resty-redis - Lua redis client driver for the ngx_lua based on the cosocket API

Table of Contents

• Name
• Status
• Description
• Synopsis
• Methods
  • new
  • connect
  • set_timeout
  • set_keepalive
  • get_reused_times
  • close
  • init_pipeline
  • commit_pipeline
  • cancel_pipeline
  • hmset
  • array_to_hash
  • read_reply
  • add_commands
• Redis Authentication
• Redis Transactions
• Load Balancing and Failover
• Debugging
• Automatic Error Logging
• Check List for Issues
• Limitations
• Installation
• TODO
• Community
  • English Mailing List
  • Chinese Mailing List
• Bugs and Patches
• Author
• Copyright and License
• See Also

Status

This library is considered production ready.

Description

This Lua library is a Redis client driver for the ngx_lua nginx module:

https://github.com/openresty/lua-nginx-module/#readme

This Lua library takes advantage of ngx_lua's cosocket API, which ensures 100% nonblocking behavior.

Note that at least ngx_lua 0.5.14 or OpenResty 1.2.1.14 is required.

Synopsis

    # you do not need the following line if you are using
    # the OpenResty bundle:
    lua_package_path "/path/to/lua-resty-redis/lib/?.lua;;";

    server {
        location /test {
            content_by_lua_block {
                local redis = require "resty.redis"
                local red = redis:new()

                red:set_timeout(1000) -- 1 sec

                -- or connect to a unix domain socket file listened
                -- by a redis server:
                --     local ok, err = red:connect("unix:/path/to/redis.sock")

                local ok, err = red:connect("127.0.0.1", 6379)
                if not ok then
                    ngx.say("failed to connect: ", err)
                    return
                end

                ok, err = red:set("dog", "an animal")
                if not ok then
                    ngx.say("failed to set dog: ", err)
                    return
                end

                ngx.say("set result: ", ok)

                local res, err = red:get("dog")
                if not res then
                    ngx.say("failed to get dog: ", err)
                    return
                end

                if res == ngx.null then
                    ngx.say("dog not found.")
                    return
                end

                ngx.say("dog: ", res)

                red:init_pipeline()
                red:set("cat", "Marry")
                red:set("horse", "Bob")
                red:get("cat")
                red:get("horse")
                local results, err = red:commit_pipeline()
                if not results then
                    ngx.say("failed to commit the pipelined requests: ", err)
                    return
                end

                for i, res in ipairs(results) do
                    if type(res) == "table" then
                        if res[1] == false then
                            ngx.say("failed to run command ", i, ": ", res[2])
                        else
                            -- process the table value
                        end
                    else
                        -- process the scalar value
                    end
                end

                -- put it into the connection pool of size 100,
                -- with 10 seconds max idle time
                local ok, err = red:set_keepalive(10000, 100)
                if not ok then
                    ngx.say("failed to set keepalive: ", err)
                    return
                end

                -- or just close the connection right away:
                -- local ok, err = red:close()
                -- if not ok then
                --     ngx.say("failed to close: ", err)
                --     return
                -- end
            }
        }
    }

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Methods

All of the Redis commands have their own methods with the same name except all in lower case.

You can find the complete list of Redis commands here:

http://redis.io/commands

You need to check out this Redis command reference to see what Redis command accepts what arguments.

The Redis command arguments can be directly fed into the corresponding method call. For example, the "GET" redis command accepts a single key argument, then you can just call the "get" method like this:

    local res, err = red:get("key")

Similarly, the "LRANGE" redis command accepts threee arguments, then you should call the "lrange" method like this:

    local res, err = red:lrange("nokey", 0, 1)

For example, "SET", "GET", "LRANGE", and "BLPOP" commands correspond to the methods "set", "get", "lrange", and "blpop".

Here are some more examples:

    -- HMGET myhash field1 field2 nofield
    local res, err = red:hmget("myhash", "field1", "field2", "nofield")

    -- HMSET myhash field1 "Hello" field2 "World"
    local res, err = red:hmset("myhash", "field1", "Hello", "field2", "World")

All these command methods returns a single result in success and nil otherwise. In case of errors or failures, it will also return a second value which is a string describing the error.

A Redis "status reply" results in a string typed return value with the "+" prefix stripped.

A Redis "integer reply" results in a Lua number typed return value.

A Redis "error reply" results in a false value and a string describing the error.

A non-nil Redis "bulk reply" results in a Lua string as the return value. A nil bulk reply results in a ngx.null return value.

A non-nil Redis "multi-bulk reply" results in a Lua table holding all the composing values (if any). If any of the composing value is a valid redis error value, then it will be a two element table {false, err}.

A nil multi-bulk reply returns in a ngx.null value.

See http://redis.io/topics/protocol for details regarding various Redis reply types.

In addition to all those redis command methods, the following methods are also provided:

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new

syntax: red, err = redis:new()

Creates a redis object. In case of failures, returns nil and a string describing the error.

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connect

syntax: ok, err = red:connect(host, port, options_table?)

syntax: ok, err = red:connect("unix:/path/to/unix.sock", options_table?)

Attempts to connect to the remote host and port that the redis server is listening to or a local unix domain socket file listened by the redis server.

Before actually resolving the host name and connecting to the remote backend, this method will always look up the connection pool for matched idle connections created by previous calls of this method.

An optional Lua table can be specified as the last argument to this method to specify various connect options:

• pool

  Specifies a custom name for the connection pool being used. If omitted, then the connection pool name will be generated from the string template <host>:<port> or <unix-socket-path>.

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set_timeout

syntax: red:set_timeout(time)

Sets the timeout (in ms) protection for subsequent operations, including the connect method.

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set_keepalive

syntax: ok, err = red:set_keepalive(max_idle_timeout, pool_size)

Puts the current Redis connection immediately into the ngx_lua cosocket connection pool.

You can specify the max idle timeout (in ms) when the connection is in the pool and the maximal size of the pool every nginx worker process.

In case of success, returns 1. In case of errors, returns nil with a string describing the error.

Only call this method in the place you would have called the close method instead. Calling this method will immediately turn the current redis object into the closed state. Any subsequent operations other than connect() on the current object will return the closed error.

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get_reused_times

syntax: times, err = red:get_reused_times()

This method returns the (successfully) reused times for the current connection. In case of error, it returns nil and a string describing the error.

If the current connection does not come from the built-in connection pool, then this method always returns 0, that is, the connection has never been reused (yet). If the connection comes from the connection pool, then the return value is always non-zero. So this method can also be used to determine if the current connection comes from the pool.

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close

syntax: ok, err = red:close()

Closes the current redis connection and returns the status.

In case of success, returns 1. In case of errors, returns nil with a string describing the error.

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init_pipeline

syntax: red:init_pipeline()

syntax: red:init_pipeline(n)

Enable the redis pipelining mode. All subsequent calls to Redis command methods will automatically get cached and will send to the server in one run when the commit_pipeline method is called or get cancelled by calling the cancel_pipeline method.

This method always succeeds.

If the redis object is already in the Redis pipelining mode, then calling this method will discard existing cached Redis queries.

The optional n argument specifies the (approximate) number of commands that are going to add to this pipeline, which can make things a little faster.

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commit_pipeline

syntax: results, err = red:commit_pipeline()

Quits the pipelining mode by committing all the cached Redis queries to the remote server in a single run. All the replies for these queries will be collected automatically and are returned as if a big multi-bulk reply at the highest level.

This method returns nil and a Lua string describing the error upon failures.

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cancel_pipeline

syntax: red:cancel_pipeline()

Quits the pipelining mode by discarding all existing cached Redis commands since the last call to the init_pipeline method.

This method always succeeds.

If the redis object is not in the Redis pipelining mode, then this method is a no-op.

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hmset

syntax: red:hmset(myhash, field1, value1, field2, value2, ...)

syntax: red:hmset(myhash, { field1 = value1, field2 = value2, ... })

Special wrapper for the Redis "hmset" command.

When there are only three arguments (including the "red" object itself), then the last argument must be a Lua table holding all the field/value pairs.

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array_to_hash

syntax: hash = red:array_to_hash(array)

Auxiliary function that converts an array-like Lua table into a hash-like table.

This method was first introduced in the v0.11 release.

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read_reply

syntax: res, err = red:read_reply()

Reading a reply from the redis server. This method is mostly useful for the Redis Pub/Sub API, for example,

    local cjson = require "cjson"
    local redis = require "resty.redis"

    local red = redis:new()
    local red2 = redis:new()

    red:set_timeout(1000) -- 1 sec
    red2:set_timeout(1000) -- 1 sec

    local ok, err = red:connect("127.0.0.1", 6379)
    if not ok then
        ngx.say("1: failed to connect: ", err)
        return
    end

    ok, err = red2:connect("127.0.0.1", 6379)
    if not ok then
        ngx.say("2: failed to connect: ", err)
        return
    end

    local res, err = red:subscribe("dog")
    if not res then
        ngx.say("1: failed to subscribe: ", err)
        return
    end

    ngx.say("1: subscribe: ", cjson.encode(res))

    res, err = red2:publish("dog", "Hello")
    if not res then
        ngx.say("2: failed to publish: ", err)
        return
    end

    ngx.say("2: publish: ", cjson.encode(res))

    res, err = red:read_reply()
    if not res then
        ngx.say("1: failed to read reply: ", err)
        return
    end

    ngx.say("1: receive: ", cjson.encode(res))

    red:close()
    red2:close()

Running this example gives the output like this:

1: subscribe: ["subscribe","dog",1]
2: publish: 1
1: receive: ["message","dog","Hello"]

The following class methods are provieded:

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add_commands

syntax: hash = redis.add_commands(cmd_name1, cmd_name2, ...)

WARNING this method is now deprecated since we already do automatic Lua method generation for any redis commands the user attempts to use and thus we no longer need this.

Adds new redis commands to the resty.redis class. Here is an example:

    local redis = require "resty.redis"

    redis.add_commands("foo", "bar")

    local red = redis:new()

    red:set_timeout(1000) -- 1 sec

    local ok, err = red:connect("127.0.0.1", 6379)
    if not ok then
        ngx.say("failed to connect: ", err)
        return
    end

    local res, err = red:foo("a")
    if not res then
        ngx.say("failed to foo: ", err)
    end

    res, err = red:bar()
    if not res then
        ngx.say("failed to bar: ", err)
    end

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Redis Authentication

Redis uses the AUTH command to do authentication: http://redis.io/commands/auth

There is nothing special for this command as compared to other Redis commands like GET and SET. So one can just invoke the auth method on your resty.redis instance. Here is an example:

    local redis = require "resty.redis"
    local red = redis:new()

    red:set_timeout(1000) -- 1 sec

    local ok, err = red:connect("127.0.0.1", 6379)
    if not ok then
        ngx.say("failed to connect: ", err)
        return
    end

    local res, err = red:auth("foobared")
    if not res then
        ngx.say("failed to authenticate: ", err)
        return
    end

where we assume that the Redis server is configured with the password foobared in the redis.conf file:

requirepass foobared

If the password specified is wrong, then the sample above will output the following to the HTTP client:

failed to authenticate: ERR invalid password

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Redis Transactions

This library supports the Redis transactions. Here is an example:

    local cjson = require "cjson"
    local redis = require "resty.redis"
    local red = redis:new()

    red:set_timeout(1000) -- 1 sec

    local ok, err = red:connect("127.0.0.1", 6379)
    if not ok then
        ngx.say("failed to connect: ", err)
        return
    end

    local ok, err = red:multi()
    if not ok then
        ngx.say("failed to run multi: ", err)
        return
    end
    ngx.say("multi ans: ", cjson.encode(ok))

    local ans, err = red:set("a", "abc")
    if not ans then
        ngx.say("failed to run sort: ", err)
        return
    end
    ngx.say("set ans: ", cjson.encode(ans))

    local ans, err = red:lpop("a")
    if not ans then
        ngx.say("failed to run sort: ", err)
        return
    end
    ngx.say("set ans: ", cjson.encode(ans))

    ans, err = red:exec()
    ngx.say("exec ans: ", cjson.encode(ans))

    red:close()

Then the output will be

multi ans: "OK"
set ans: "QUEUED"
set ans: "QUEUED"
exec ans: ["OK",[false,"ERR Operation against a key holding the wrong kind of value"]]

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Load Balancing and Failover

You can trivially implement your own Redis load balancing logic yourself in Lua. Just keep a Lua table of all available Redis backend information (like host name and port numbers) and pick one server according to some rule (like round-robin or key-based hashing) from the Lua table at every request. You can keep track of the current rule state in your own Lua module's data, see https://github.com/openresty/lua-nginx-module/#data-sharing-within-an-nginx-worker

Similarly, you can implement automatic failover logic in Lua at great flexibility.

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Debugging

It is usually convenient to use the lua-cjson library to encode the return values of the redis command methods to JSON. For example,

    local cjson = require "cjson"
    ...
    local res, err = red:mget("h1234", "h5678")
    if res then
        print("res: ", cjson.encode(res))
    end

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Automatic Error Logging

By default the underlying ngx_lua module does error logging when socket errors happen. If you are already doing proper error handling in your own Lua code, then you are recommended to disable this automatic error logging by turning off ngx_lua's lua_socket_log_errors directive, that is,

    lua_socket_log_errors off;

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Check List for Issues

1. Ensure you configure the connection pool size properly in the set_keepalive . Basically if your NGINX handle n concurrent requests and your NGINX has m workers, then the connection pool size should be configured as n/m. For example, if your NGINX usually handles 1000 concurrent requests and you have 10 NGINX workers, then the connection pool size should be 100.
2. Ensure the backlog setting on the Redis side is large enough. For Redis 2.8+, you can directly tune the tcp-backlog parameter in the redis.conf file (and also tune the kernel parameter SOMAXCONN accordingly at least on Linux). You may also want to tune the maxclients parameter in redis.conf.
3. Ensure you are not using too short timeout setting in the set_timeout method. If you have to, try redoing the operation upon timeout and turning off automatic error logging (because you are already doing proper error handling in your own Lua code).
4. If your NGINX worker processes' CPU usage is very high under load, then the NGINX event loop might be blocked by the CPU computation too much. Try sampling a C-land on-CPU Flame Graph and Lua-land on-CPU Flame Graph for a typical NGINX worker process. You can optimize the CPU-bound things according to these Flame Graphs.
5. If your NGINX worker processes' CPU usage is very low under load, then the NGINX event loop might be blocked by some blocking system calls (like file IO system calls). You can confirm the issue by running the epoll-loop-blocking-distr tool against a typical NGINX worker process. If it is indeed the case, then you can further sample a C-land off-CPU Flame Graph for a NGINX worker process to analyze the actual blockers.
6. If your redis-server process is running near 100% CPU usage, then you should consider scale your Redis backend by multiple nodes or use the C-land on-CPU Flame Graph tool to analyze the internal bottlenecks within the Redis server process.

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Limitations

• This library cannot be used in code contexts like init_by_lua, set_by_lua, log_by_lua, and header_filter_by_lua where the ngx_lua cosocket API is not available.
• The resty.redis object instance cannot be stored in a Lua variable at the Lua module level, because it will then be shared by all the concurrent requests handled by the same nginx worker process (see https://github.com/openresty/lua-nginx-module/#data-sharing-within-an-nginx-worker ) and result in bad race conditions when concurrent requests are trying to use the same resty.redis instance (you would see the "bad request" or "socket busy" error to be returned from the method calls). You should always initiate resty.redis objects in function local variables or in the ngx.ctx table. These places all have their own data copies for each request.

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Installation

If you are using the OpenResty bundle (http://openresty.org ), then you do not need to do anything because it already includes and enables lua-resty-redis by default. And you can just use it in your Lua code, as in

    local redis = require "resty.redis"
    ...

If you are using your own nginx + ngx_lua build, then you need to configure the lua_package_path directive to add the path of your lua-resty-redis source tree to ngx_lua's LUA_PATH search path, as in

    # nginx.conf
    http {
        lua_package_path "/path/to/lua-resty-redis/lib/?.lua;;";
        ...
    }

Ensure that the system account running your Nginx ''worker'' proceses have enough permission to read the .lua file.

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TODO

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Community

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English Mailing List

The openresty-en mailing list is for English speakers.

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Chinese Mailing List

The openresty mailing list is for Chinese speakers.

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Bugs and Patches

Please report bugs or submit patches by

1. creating a ticket on the GitHub Issue Tracker,
2. or posting to the OpenResty community.

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Author

Yichun "agentzh" Zhang (章亦春) agentzh@gmail.com, CloudFlare Inc.

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Copyright and License

This module is licensed under the BSD license.

Copyright (C) 2012-2016, by Yichun Zhang (agentzh) agentzh@gmail.com, CloudFlare Inc.

All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

• Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

• Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

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See Also

• the ngx_lua module: https://github.com/openresty/lua-nginx-module/#readme
• the redis wired protocol specification: http://redis.io/topics/protocol
• the lua-resty-memcached library
• the lua-resty-mysql library

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