Redis Security

Redis Security

Production hardening for Redis: authentication, ACL-based access control, and network exposure. Cover all three together — any one of them on its own leaves an exploitable gap.

When to apply

• Deploying or reviewing a Redis instance destined for production.
• Setting up application credentials beyond a shared password.
• Auditing a Redis deployment against a security checklist.
• Receiving "Redis exposed to the internet" findings from a scanner.

1. Always authenticate (and use TLS)

Never run a production Redis without a password. Pair authentication with TLS so credentials and data aren't sent in clear text.

# redis.confrequirepass your-strong-passwordtls-port 6380tls-cert-file /path/to/redis.crttls-key-file  /path/to/redis.key

r = redis.Redis(    host="localhost",    port=6380,    password="your-strong-password",    ssl=True,    ssl_cert_reqs="required",)

If you can use ACL users (next section) instead of the single requirepass, do — requirepass is effectively the legacy "default user" shortcut.

See references/auth.md [blocked].

2. ACLs for least-privilege access

The default user with a shared password is fine for development. For production, give each application a dedicated ACL user with only the commands and key patterns it actually needs.

# Cache-only readerACL SETUSER app_readonly on >password ~cache:* +get +mget +scan
# Writer that can't run dangerous opsACL SETUSER app_writer   on >password ~*        +@all -@dangerous
# Admin (use sparingly, never for application traffic)ACL SETUSER admin        on >strong-password ~* +@all

Useful command categories:

If app credentials leak, a tight ACL bounds the blast radius — the attacker can't FLUSHALL your DB just because they grabbed a cache reader's password.

See references/acls.md [blocked].

3. Restrict network access

The most common Redis breach is a public-internet Redis with no auth. Avoid that with three layers:

# redis.conf — bind to specific interfaces, keep protected-mode onbind 127.0.0.1 192.168.1.100protected-mode yes

# Firewall — allow only application subnetsiptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 6379 -s 192.168.1.0/24 -j ACCEPTiptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 6379 -j DROP

Anti-pattern: bind 0.0.0.0 + protected-mode no — exposes Redis to the whole network without protection.

Optional but recommended: rename or disable destructive commands so a compromised client can't trash the DB:

rename-command FLUSHALL ""rename-command DEBUG ""rename-command CONFIG ""

See references/network.md [blocked].

References

• Redis: Security
• Redis: ACL