How to Monitor Redis with Prometheus: Installation, Configuration, Visualization, and Alerting

In modern application architectures, Redis is widely used as a high‑performance cache and message queue, and monitoring its availability and stability is essential.

While basic tools like redis‑cli and redis‑stat provide limited metrics, a more powerful solution is to use Prometheus together with the Redis Exporter.

1. Install Redis Exporter

$ wget https://github.com/oliver006/redis_exporter/releases/download/v1.36.0/redis_exporter-v1.36.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz
$ tar -xvf redis_exporter-v1.36.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz
$ cd redis_exporter-v1.36.0.linux-amd64/
$ mv redis_exporter /usr/local/bin/

Start the exporter:

$ redis_exporter -redis.addr localhost:6379 &

The exporter exposes metrics on port 9121 for Prometheus to scrape.

2. Configure Prometheus

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: 'redis'
    scrape_interval: 5s
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['192.168.214.112:9121']

Run Prometheus with the updated configuration:

$ prometheus --config.file /etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml &

After Prometheus reloads, the Redis job will be active.

3. Data Visualization with Grafana

Add Prometheus as a data source in Grafana, import a Redis dashboard template, and create panels to display metrics such as memory usage, command execution, client connections, and persistence status.

4. Alerting

groups:
- name: redis_alerts
  rules:
  - alert: TooManyConnections
    expr: redis_connected_clients > 1000
    for: 5m
    labels:
      severity: warning
    annotations:
      summary: "Too many connections (instance {{ $labels.instance }})"
      description: "Redis instance has too many connections
  VALUE = {{ $value }}
  LABELS: {{ $labels }}"

This rule triggers a warning when client connections exceed 1000, helping operators respond quickly.

By combining Prometheus, Redis Exporter, and Grafana, you can build a reliable monitoring and alerting system that ensures Redis’s availability and performance.