A practical guide to connecting to a managed Redis instance over TLS on Ubuntu 24.04. Covers three approaches: native redis-cli TLS using the --tls flag (recommended for Redis 6+), stunnel as a local plaintext-to-TLS proxy for older clients, and SSH port forwarding as an alternative. Includes step-by-step stunnel configuration with privilege dropping, CA certificate verification, and a troubleshooting section covering common errors like connection refused, authentication failures, stunnel exiting immediately, and DNS resolution issues.
Table of contents
IntroductionPrerequisitesChoosing a Secure Connection MethodUnderstanding CA Certificate VerificationStep 1: Installing Stunnel and redis-cliStep 2: Connecting with redis-cli Native TLSStep 3: Configuring StunnelStep 4: Connecting Through the Stunnel TunnelTroubleshooting Common ErrorsFAQsConclusion98 Impressions