Allow PREFIX to be overrided in Makefile.

[redis.git] / README

Where to find complete Redis documentation?
-------------------------------------------

This README is just a fast "quick start" document. You can find more detailed
documentation at http://redis.io

Building Redis
--------------

Redis can be compiled and used on Linux, OSX, OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD.
We support big endian and little endian architectures.

It may compile on Solaris derived systems (for instance SmartOS) but our
support for this platform is "best effort" and Redis is not guaranteed to
work as well as in Linux, OSX, and *BSD there.

It is as simple as:

    % make

You can run a 32 bit Redis binary using:

    % make 32bit

After building Redis is a good idea to test it, using:

    % make test

NOTE: if after building Redis with a 32 bit target you need to rebuild it
      with a 64 bit target you need to perform a "make clean" in the root
      directory of the Redis distribution.

Allocator
---------

Selecting a non-default memory allocator when building Redis is done by setting
the `MALLOC` environment variable. Redis is compiled and linked against libc
malloc by default, with the exception of jemalloc being the default on Linux
systems. This default was picked because jemalloc has proven to have fewer
fragmentation problems than libc malloc.

To force compiling against libc malloc, use:

    % make MALLOC=libc

To compile against jemalloc on Mac OS X systems, use:

    % make MALLOC=jemalloc

Verbose build
-------------

Redis will build with a user friendly colorized output by default.
If you want to see a more verbose output use the following:

    % make V=1

Running Redis
-------------

To run Redis with the default configuration just type:

    % cd src
    % ./redis-server
    
If you want to provide your redis.conf, you have to run it using an additional
parameter (the path of the configuration file):

    % cd src
    % ./redis-server /path/to/redis.conf

It is possible to alter the Redis configuration passing parameters directly
as options using the command line. Examples:

    % ./redis-server --port 9999 --slaveof 127.0.0.1 6379
    % ./redis-server /etc/redis/6379.conf --loglevel debug

All the options in redis.conf are also supported as options using the command
line, with exactly the same name.

Playing with Redis
------------------

You can use redis-cli to play with Redis. Start a redis-server instance,
then in another terminal try the following:

    % cd src
    % ./redis-cli
    redis> ping
    PONG
    redis> set foo bar
    OK
    redis> get foo
    "bar"
    redis> incr mycounter
    (integer) 1
    redis> incr mycounter
    (integer) 2
    redis> 

You can find the list of all the available commands here:

    http://redis.io/commands

Installing Redis
-----------------

In order to install Redis binaries into /usr/local/bin just use:

    % make install

You can use "make PREFIX=/some/other/directory install" if you wish to use a
different destination.

Make install will just install binaries in your system, but will not configure
init scripts and configuration files in the appropriate place. This is not
needed if you want just to play a bit with Redis, but if you are installing
it the proper way for a production system, we have a script doing this
for Ubuntu and Debian systems:

    % cd utils
    % ./install_server

The script will ask you a few questions and will setup everything you need
to run Redis properly as a background daemon that will start again on
system reboots.

You'll be able to stop and start Redis using the script named
/etc/init.d/redis_<portnumber>, for instance /etc/init.d/redis_6379.

Enjoy!