[request] Custom Redis client settings using environment variables

[stayallive]

We are using a managed database by Digital Ocean and they require an SSL connection. AWS ElastiCache and many other managed solutions have the same requirement.

This is "easy" to enable by adding a tls: {} to the options passed to new Redis({...}). However I have a hard time figuring out how to do this nicely so we can have a DB_REDIS_TLS=true and it doing tls: {} or tls: undefined (which is the default) based on that value. Any help would be appreciated :)

I also noticed that when Redis has a connection problem it spins out of control (consuming ~1 core of CPU time) in an infinite loop barfing this when in debug mode:

Error: write EPIPE
    at afterWriteDispatched (node:internal/stream_base_commons:164:15)
    at writeGeneric (node:internal/stream_base_commons:155:3)
    at Socket._writeGeneric (node:net:795:11)
    at Socket._write (node:net:807:8)
    at writeOrBuffer (node:internal/streams/writable:389:12)
    at _write (node:internal/streams/writable:330:10)
    at Socket.Writable.write (node:internal/streams/writable:334:10)
    at Redis.sendCommand (/usr/lib/node_modules/@soketi/soketi/node_modules/ioredis/built/redis/index.js:672:33)
    at /usr/lib/node_modules/@soketi/soketi/node_modules/ioredis/built/redis/event_handler.js:256:26
    at Socket.<anonymous> (/usr/lib/node_modules/@soketi/soketi/node_modules/ioredis/built/redis/event_handler.js:46:39) {
  errno: -32,
  code: 'EPIPE',
  syscall: 'write'
}
Error: write ECONNRESET
    at afterWriteDispatched (node:internal/stream_base_commons:164:15)
    at writeGeneric (node:internal/stream_base_commons:155:3)
    at Socket._writeGeneric (node:net:795:11)
    at Socket._write (node:net:807:8)
    at writeOrBuffer (node:internal/streams/writable:389:12)
    at _write (node:internal/streams/writable:330:10)
    at Socket.Writable.write (node:internal/streams/writable:334:10)
    at Redis.sendCommand (/usr/lib/node_modules/@soketi/soketi/node_modules/ioredis/built/redis/index.js:672:33)
    at /usr/lib/node_modules/@soketi/soketi/node_modules/ioredis/built/redis/event_handler.js:256:26
    at Socket.<anonymous> (/usr/lib/node_modules/@soketi/soketi/node_modules/ioredis/built/redis/event_handler.js:46:39) {
  errno: -104,
  code: 'ECONNRESET',
  syscall: 'write'
}

Maybe we should have a little more conservatie retry strategy.

[rennokki]

I think I'll start implementing support for JSON-based configurations as files. This way it's better to configure nested values 🤔 (https://github.com/soketi/soketi/projects/1#card-64718909)

[rennokki]

I think that environment variables wouldn't be a great choice for complex configurations. I don't really know why I started doing that in the first place, but having a JSON file that can be configured would be easier.

{
    "database.redis.tls": { ... }
}

soketi start --config=/path/to/config.json

[stayallive]

Honestly having it makes setting up a server really quick and easy... so I like having the JSON option but would not call the env variables bad honestly.

Also for the TLS option, it just needs to be an empty object so there is not much to configure unless you also want to implement reading files from disk.

[rennokki]

Still going to work on this to make env variables for this a thing 🤔

[ajnozari]

Any update on allowing env variables for this?

[mackensiealvarezz]

Is there any way of doing this with environment variables ?

[stayallive]

No it is not, but it's very easy to do with the JSON (in addition to your environment variables).

Create a file called config.json on your server which should be accessible by the user running Soketi with the following contents:

{
    "database.redis.tls": {}
}

Instead of running just soketi start, change it to soketi start --config=/home/soketi/config.json (change the path to the config.json to where you placed it) and then you can use a Redis host using TLS (like a Digital Ocean managed Redis instance).

[rennokki]

I had to postpone this issue. For now, the config should work perfectly fine.

[mackensiealvarezz]

I'm using the docker image inside of my helm chart. How can I pass this command? It looks like the command automatically runs when the container starts.

I tried this but it didn't work

        - name: soketi
          image: quay.io/soketi/soketi:0.32.2-16-alpine
          command:
            - node
            - /app/bin/server.js
            - start --config=/etc/configws/config.json

[rennokki]

Have you injected the file in the pod?

[mackensiealvarezz]

Yes, I created a custom configmap with:

{
    "database.redis.tls": {}
}

and mounted it to /etc/configws/config.json

I also exec into the pod and confirmed the file was there. I tried to also exec into the pod and run node server.js start --config=/etc/configws/config.json. When i did that, the pod just terminates and crashes

[winfamy]

@mackensiealvarezz I FIGURED YOUR ISSUE OUT
I've been going through this myself trying to figure out how to do this (TLS on Redis)

        - name: soketi
          image: quay.io/soketi/soketi:0.32.2-16-alpine
          command:
            - node
            - /app/bin/server.js
            - start --config=/etc/configws/config.json

is an incorrect way of specifying the command block for a docker-compose config. Instead, you need to separate your last line!!!!!

        - name: soketi
          image: quay.io/soketi/soketi:0.32.2-16-alpine
          command:
            - node
            - /app/bin/server.js
            - start 
            - --config=/etc/configws/config.json

This worked for me! Quite literally one of the worst experiences troubleshooting Docker I have ever had.

(sorry unrelated to issue at hand, but will prevent someone from troubleshooting Docker + Soketi for a few hours)

[limadelrey]

Is there any update on allowing to configure TLS using an environment variable? ☝️