Valkey 9.0

Valkey is an open-source, high-performance in-memory data store and Redis-compatible alternative. It is commonly used for caching, session storage, real-time leaderboards, pub/sub messaging, and job queues.

Software included

Component	Version
Valkey	9.0.x
Ubuntu	24.04 LTS

Getting started

1. Connect to your VM

ssh ubuntu@<your-vm-ip>

2. Wait for first-boot configuration

On the first boot, a setup script runs automatically. It generates a random password and configures Valkey to require authentication on every connection. This takes under 30 seconds.

Track progress:

journalctl -u valkey-first-boot.service -f

3. Retrieve credentials

sudo cat /etc/valkey/credentials.txt

This file contains the password and connection instructions. It is only readable by root.

4. Connect to Valkey

VALKEY_PASS=$(sudo awk '/^Valkey password:/{print $NF}' /etc/valkey/credentials.txt)
valkey-cli -a "$VALKEY_PASS"

Confirm the connection:

127.0.0.1:6379> PING
PONG

Managing Valkey

# Check service status
systemctl status valkey

# Restart
sudo systemctl restart valkey

# View logs
sudo journalctl -u valkey -f

Configuration files:

File	Purpose
`/etc/valkey/valkey.conf`	Main configuration
`/etc/valkey/99-memory.conf`	Memory limit and eviction policy

To set a memory limit, edit /etc/valkey/99-memory.conf:

maxmemory 512mb
maxmemory-policy noeviction

Then restart Valkey. The default policy is noeviction, which returns an error when memory is full rather than silently evicting data.

Security

Port 6379 is not open externally by default. UFW is enabled and allows SSH (port 22) only.

To allow access from a specific IP:

sudo ufw allow from <trusted-ip> to any port 6379

To connect without opening the firewall (recommended), use an SSH tunnel:

# Run this on your local machine
ssh -L 6379:localhost:6379 ubuntu@<your-vm-ip>

# Then connect locally
valkey-cli -a "<password>"