How to start using RESP.app

After you've installed RESP.app, the first thing you need to do in order to get going is to create a connection to your Redis server. On the main window, press the button labelled Connect to Redis Server.

Connect to a local or public redis-server

On the first tab (Connection Settings), put in general information regarding the connection that you are creating.

  • Name - the name of new connection (example: my_local_redis)
  • Host - redis-server host (example: localhost)
  • Port - redis-server port (example: 6379)
  • Password - redis-server authentication password (if any) (http://redis.io/commands/AUTH)
  • Username - only for redis-servers >= 6.0 with configured ACL, for older redis-server leave empty

Connect to a public redis-server with SSL

If you want to connect to a redis-server instance with SSL you need to enable SSL on the second tab and provide a public key in PEM format. Instructions for certain cloud services are below:

AWS ElastiCache

AWS ElastiCache is not accessible outside of your VPC. In order to connect to your ElastiCache remotely, you need to use one of the following options:

How to connect to AWS ElastiCache with In-Transit Encryption

VPN / NAT

Enable SSL/TLS checkbox and connect to your AWS ElastiCache with In-Transit Encryption.

SSH tunnel

Click on "Enable TLS-over-SSH" checkbox in the the SSH connection settings and connect to your AWS ElastiCache with In-Transit Encryption.

Microsoft Azure Redis Cache

  1. Create a connection with all requested information.
  2. Make sure that the "Use SSL Protocol" checkbox is enabled.
  3. Your Azure Redis connection is ready to use.

Redis Labs

To connect to a Redis Labs instance with SSL/TLS encryption, follow the steps below:

  1. Make sure that SSL is enabled for your Redis instance in the Redis Labs dashboard.
  2. Download and unzip garantia_credentials.zip from the Redis Labs dashboard.
  3. Select garantia_user.crt in the "Public key" field.
  4. Select garantia_user_private.key in the "Private key" field.
  5. Select garantia_ca.pem in the "Authority" field.

Digital Ocean Managed Redis

Digital Ocean connection settings is a bit confusing. To connect to a Digital Ocean Managed Redis you need to follow steps bellow:

  1. Copy host, port and password information to RESP.app
  2. Leave Username field in RESP.app empty (Important!)
  3. Enable SSL/TLS checkbox

Or using Quick Connect tab for new connections: 1. Copy connection string (starts with "rediss://") from connection details to RESP.app 2. Click "Import" and "Test Connection"

Heroku Redis

  1. Get Redis connection string from terminal with command 
heroku config -a YOUR-APP-NAME | grep REDIS

or get it from Heroku website.

Example output:

rediss://user:password@host:port
  1. Enter connection settings in RESP.app Connection dialog:
  2. If URL starts with rediss enable SSL/TLS checkbox and uncheck "Enable strict mode" checkbox
  3. Copy user to "Username" field
  4. Copy password to "Password" field
  5. Copy host and port to "Address" field in RESP.app

Connect to private redis-server via SSH tunnel

Basic SSH tunneling

SSH tab is supposed to allow you to use a SSH tunnel. It's useful if your redis-server is not publicly accessible. To use a SSH tunnel select checkbox "SSH Tunnel". There are different security options; you can use a plain password or OpenSSH private key.

for Windows users:

Your private key must be in .pem format.

SSH Agent

Starting from version 2022.3 RESP.app supports SSH Agents. This allows using password managers like 1Password to securely store your SSH keys with 2FA.

for Windows users:

On Windows RESP.app supports only Microsoft OpenSSH that's why "Custom SSH Agent Path" option is not available.

How to connect to 1Password SSH-Agent from DMG version of RESP.app

It's possible to set default SSH Agent for all connections in RESP.app by overriding environment variable SSH_AUTH_SOCK. If you need to use custom ssh agent only for specific connections follow steps above:

  1. Create symlink to agent.sock
mkdir -p ~/.1password && ln -s ~/Library/Group\ Containers/2BUA8C4S2C.com.1password/t/agent.sock ~/.1password/agent.sock
  1. In RESP.app check "Use SSH Agent" checkbox and click on the "Select File" button next to "Custom SSH Agent Path" field
  2. Press ⌘ + Shift + . to show hidden files and folders in the dialog
  3. Select file ~/.1password/agent.sock
  4. Save connection settings
How to connect to SSH-Agent from AppStore version of RESP.app

Due to AppStore sandboxing RESP.app cannot access default or custom SSH Agents defined by SSH_AUTH_SOCK variable. To overcome this limitation you need to create proxy unix socket inside RESP.app sandbox container:

  1. Install socat with homebrew
brew install socat
  1. Create proxy unix-socket with socat:
socat UNIX-LISTEN:$HOME/Library/Containers/com.redisdesktop.rdm/Data/agent.sock UNIX-CONNECT:"$HOME/Library/Group Containers/2BUA8C4S2C.com.1password/t/agent.sock"

Advanced SSH tunneling

If you need advanced SSH tunneling you should setup a SSH tunnel manually and connect via localhost:

ssh SSH_HOST -L 7000:localhost:6379

Connect to a UNIX socket

RESP.app doesn't support UNIX sockets directly, but you can use redirecting of the local socket to the UNIX domain socket, for instance with socat:

socat -v tcp-l:6379,reuseaddr,fork unix:/tmp/redis.sock

Advanced connection settings

The Advanced settings tab allows you to customise the namespace separator and other advanced settings.

Next steps

Now you can test a connection or create a connection right away.

Congratulations, you've successfully connected to your Redis Server. You should see something similar to what we show below.

Click on the connection and expand keys. By clicking the right button, you can see console menu and manage your connection from there.