Setting up the Redis Server as a session is really advantageous. First, its a NO-SQL database and second its really easy to scale using this. This kind of setup would lead to a clear understanding of how Redis can behave as cache as well as a session storing system. In order to do this the instructions are as follows :-

  1. Download Redis and build by the following commands (This includes downloading it too)

    wget http://download.redis.io/redis-stable.tar.gz tar xvzf redis-stable.tar.gz 
    cd redis-stable 
    make

  2. Start Redis using command(Redis Directory refers to the directory where Redis is built)

    cd RedisDirectory/src 
    ./redis-server –port 6379

  3. Get the latest version of Apache Tomcat 7

  4. Download the latest version for JEDIS (A Redis Java Client), Tomcat Redis Session Manager (Redis-backed non-sticky session store for Apache Tomcat) and Apache Commons Pool .

  5. Copy all the above files into the lib folder of the Apache Tomcat 7 installation directory.

  6. Add the lines mentioned below in the context.xml of your Apache Tomcat 7 (Or on the context block of server.xml if applicable).Edit the Configurations as your settings. In out case the port number to be configured is 6279.

    <Valve className="com.radiadesign.catalina.session.RedisSessionHandlerValve" /> 
    <Manager className="com.radiadesign.catalina.session.RedisSessionManager" 
    host="localhost" <!-- optional: defaults to "localhost" --> 
    port="6379" <!-- optional: defaults to "6379" --> 
    database="0" <!-- optional: defaults to "0" --> 
    maxInactiveInterval="60" <!-- optional: defaults to "60" (in seconds) --> />

  7. Now restart your Apache Tomcat 7 normally and now you would see that the sessions are being created in the Redis Rather than on Tomcat.

Thats it. Now you have your Apache Tomcat 7 storing all the sessions in Redis and it also takes care about the different aspects of sessions.

Image: Courtesy – “Redis”
Thanks to the plugin creator James Coleman. You can find him on Git.
Article can be viewed on my blog at Shiv Ganesh _.  

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