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The self-documented Redis configuration file called redis.conf has been mentioned many times as an example of well written documentation. In this file you can find all possible Redis configuration directives, together with a detailed description of what they do and their default values.

You should always adjust the redis.conf file to your needs and instruct Redis to run based on it's parameters when running Redis in production.

The way to do that is by providing the path to the file when starting up your server:

$ redis-server./path/to/redis.conf

When you’re only starting a Redis server instance for testing purposes you can pass configuration directives directly on the command line:

$ redis-server --port 7000 --replicaof 127.0.0.1:6379

The format of the arguments passed via the command line is exactly the same as the one used in the redis.conf file, with the exception that the keyword is prefixed with --.

Note that internally this generates an in-memory temporary config file where arguments are translated into the format of redis.conf.

It is possible to reconfigure a running Redis server without stopping or restarting it by using the special commands CONFIG SET and CONFIG GET.

127.0.0.1:6379> CONFIG GET *

127.0.0.1:6379> CONFIG SET something

127.0.0.1:6379> CONFIG REWRITE

Not all the configuration directives are supported in this way, but you can check the output of the command CONFIG GET * first for a list of all the supported ones.

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Modifying the configuration on the fly has no effect on the redis.conf file. At the next restart of Redis the old configuration will be used instead. If you want to force update the redis.conf file with your current configuration settings you can run the CONFIG REWRITE command, which will automatically scan your redis.conf file and update the fields which don't match the current configuration value.