redis,

Redis one-liner: AUTH and execute a command

Jul 17, 2022 · 1 min read · Post a comment

Given that Redis supports optional authentication, it would be outrageous to deploy it to a public subnet hence exposing to the Internet. So, once you setup and configure Redis in a private subnet, bind the address, add a firewall rule, and on top of that you could implement ACLs (Access Control Lists) as well.

Although ACLs gives you this improved granular sense of security by implementing least-privilege and reducing the blast radius, it’s worth to know that AUTH command as any other Redis command, is sent through the network unencrypted, including the password.

And another thing I had to figure out as a Redis newbie was that redis-cli creates a new connection on every invocation therefore you have to authenticate on each run. If I do this:

redis-cli -h <IP_ADDRESS> -a "<SOME_SECRET>"
<IP_ADDRESS>:6379> PING
PONG

All good, right?! Now, once you exit the session and run something like:

redis-cli -h <IP_ADDRESS> PING
(error) NOAUTH Authentication required.

So, let’s see how to do both. AUTH and execute a Redis command as a single command.

Prerequisites

  • Redis

Solution

Step 1. Run the following command:

redis-cli -h <IP_ADDRESS> -a "<SOME_PASSWORD>" PING

Output:

PONG

Conclusion

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