Kraken_Example_Session_Redis

An example of the use of Redis for session store

Introduction

In this example we're going to use Redis to store the session keys instead of the MemoryStore, which is the default behavior on a fresh install of a kraken application.

The topics covered here are:

• Installing Redis on Ubuntu
• Using the generator to build an application
• Installing the modules needed for Redis
• Configuration of the middleware for Redis

Prerequisites

• Ubuntu 13.10
• You will --of course-- need Node (Version >= 0.10.20 preferred)
• The Kraken generator. If you havent yet installed it, simply do: sudo npm install -g generator-kraken

Install Redis

Ubuntu 13.10 provides Redis 2.6.13 on their repository, so just need to do: sudo apt-get install redis-server. After installing, you will have a running redis server on the default port and with trusted access. For more information about installing and configuring Redis, please go to the Redis website.

Create an application

$ yo kraken

     ,'""`.
    / _  _ \
    |(@)(@)|   Release the Kraken!
    )  __  (
   /,'))((`.\
  (( ((  )) ))
   `\ `)(' /'

[?] Application name: Kraken_Example_Session_Redis
[?] Description: An example of using Redis to store session data
[?] Author: AlexSantos
[?] Use RequireJS? (Y/n) n

The generator will set up the app and install the dependencies. After it's done, just go into the newly created directory

$ cd Kraken_Example_Session_Redis

Installing the modules needed

To use Redis, it is necessary to install connect-redis.

$ npm install --save connect-redis@~1.4.6

After issuing this command, the package.json file has one more dependency - "connect-redis": "~1.4.6"

Configuring the middleware.json file

To instruct kraken to use Redis as the session store, the configuration must be changed to:

In middleware.json

      "session": {
          "module": "connect-redis",
          "secret": "80bc6d67f80813ccc78ff77adf0eefcafa7eeef6"
      }

To pass options to connect-redis, just add a config object:

      "session": {
          "module": "connect-redis",
          "config": {
            "ttl": 3600
          },
          "secret": "300b6574099026c0e2c46130fb62531d2e7ff6e1"
      }

And you're done!

After this, just issue: $ npm start and your application is using Redis!

Notes

Redis client: on a terminal, issue: $ redis-cli and you'll have a command line for accessing Redis. Try

$ redis-cli
redis 127.0.0.1:6379> keys *
1) "sess:Ot9K7wROHZHnr8oUnwkUteds"
2) "sess:faUzznKZ3JPNE07jL3U7cfm2"
3) "sess:XlIwce1sNO9ezHzXnhdaq7B8"
4) "sess:KNYgBRYKfjwbPkzSRSgpWKpt"
5) "sess:GZ92gMro02ynrGIkTgJiuXlC"
redis 127.0.0.1:6379> 

and you'll have a list of the keys stored.