How to Install phpRedisAdmin on CentOS 7

phpRedisAdmin is a web application that manages Redis databases with an intuitive graphic user interface.

This tutorial will explain how to install phpRedisAdmin on a Vultr CentOS 7 server instance.

Prerequisites

• Deploy a fresh Vultr CentOS 7 server instance.
• Log in as a non-root sudo user.

Step 1: Updating the system

Use the following command to update your CentOS 7 system to the latest stable status:

sudo yum update -y && sudo reboot

After the system restarts, use the same sudo user to log in.

Step 2: Installing Redis from source

Since the version of Redis in the YUM repo is out of date, you can install the latest stable version of Redis from source, which is 3.2.0 at the time of writing.

Install dependencies:

sudo yum install gcc make

Install Redis 3.2.0 to /opt/redis/3.2.0:

cd ~
wget http://download.redis.io/releases/redis-3.2.0.tar.gz
tar -zxvf redis-3.2.0.tar.gz
cd redis-3.2.0
make
sudo make PREFIX=/opt/redis/3.2.0 install

As a matter of convenience, you can add the path of Redis into the PATH environment variable:

sudo cp /etc/profile /etc/profile_backup
echo 'export PATH=$PATH:/opt/redis/3.2.0/bin' | sudo tee -a /etc/profile
source /etc/profile
echo $PATH

Step 3: Starting the Redis server

For now, let’s start the Redis server using the default configuration:

redis-server

After the Redis server starts, you will probably see several warning messages. Troubleshooting steps for various warnings are listed below.

First of all, stop the Redis server by inputting the following command from another SSH console:

redis-cli shutdown

1) If you see “WARNING: The TCP backlog setting of 511 cannot be enforced because /proc/sys/net/core/somaxconn is set to the lower value of 128.”:

echo 'net.core.somaxconn = 511' | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf
echo '511' | sudo tee -a /proc/sys/net/core/somaxconn

2) If you see “WARNING overcommit_memory is set to 0!”:

echo 'vm.overcommit_memory = 1' | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo sysctl vm.overcommit_memory=1

3) If you see “WARNING you have Transparent Huge Pages (THP) support enabled in your kernel.”:

echo 'never' | sudo tee -a /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled

Having these warning messages eliminated, run the Redis server again:

redis-server

In another SSH console, run the Redis CLI to input some data:

redis-cli

In the redis-cli console, you can manipulate any data as you wish:

127.0.0.1:6379> set key1 hello
OK
127.0.0.1:6379> get key1
"hello"

If you want to quit, Press Ctrl + C.

Step 4: Installing Git, Apache, PHP and other dependencies

Install these components using YUM:

sudo yum install git httpd php php-redis php-devel php-mbstring

Here, I use Apache to serve phpRedisAdmin, you can choose Nginx or any other web server instead.

Modify the default settings of Apache in order to enhance security:

sudo sed -i 's/^/#&/g' /etc/httpd/conf.d/welcome.conf
sudo sed -i "s/Options Indexes FollowSymLinks/Options FollowSymLinks/" /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Create a virtual host for phpRedisAdmin:

sudo vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/phpRedisAdmin.conf

Populate the file with the following code segment. Be sure to replace the values of ServerAdmin, ServerName, ServerAlias, ErrorLog, and CustomLog with your own ones.

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin xxx@example.com
    DocumentRoot /var/www/html/phpRedisAdmin/
    ServerName phpredisadmin.example.com
    ServerAlias www.phpredisadmin.example.com
    <Directory /var/www/html/phpRedisAdmin/>
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    </Directory>
    ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/phpredisadmin.example.com-error_log
    CustomLog /var/log/httpd/phpredisadmin.example.com-access_log common
</VirtualHost>

Save and quit:

:wq

Step 5: Installing phpRedisAdmin

Download phpRedisAdmin using git:

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/ErikDubbelboer/phpRedisAdmin.git
cd phpRedisAdmin
git clone https://github.com/nrk/predis.git vendor

Create the configuration file using a sample file:

cp includes/config.sample.inc.php includes/config.inc.php

Note: In the future, you can use this file to customize phpRedisAdmin, like adding more Redis servers, enabling HTTP authentication, and such. But for now, let’s use the default settings.

Move the directory to the virtual host location we setup earlier:

cd ~
sudo chown -R apache: ~/phpRedisAdmin
sudo mv ~/phpRedisAdmin /var/www/html

Step 6: Visiting phpRedisAdmin

Start and enable Apache:

sudo systemctl start httpd.service
sudo systemctl enable httpd.service

Modify firewall rules in order to allow visitors to access phpRedisAdmin:

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --permanent --add-service=http
sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Finally, visit phpRedisAdmin from your web browser. Be sure that redis-server is running.

http://<your-Vultr-server-IP>

You will be presented with the interface of phpRedisAdmin, where you can view and manage your Redis databases. This concludes the tutorial.