Standalone Mode

Standalone mode runs FerricStore as a full Redis-compatible server. It starts a TCP listener (and optionally a TLS listener) that speaks the RESP3 protocol, an HTTP health endpoint, Prometheus metrics, and all the core engine components. Connect with redis-cli, Redix, or any Redis client in any language.

When to Use Standalone Mode

• You need external clients to connect (redis-cli, applications in other languages)
• You want to run FerricStore as a separate service
• You need TLS encryption for client connections
• You want HTTP health endpoints for Kubernetes
• You want Prometheus metrics scraping

Setup

From Source

git clone https://github.com/YoavGivati/ferricstore.git
cd ferricstore
mix deps.get
mix run --no-halt

FerricStore starts on port 6379 by default.

As a Dependency

If you want standalone mode inside an umbrella or host application, add both packages:

# mix.exs
def deps do
  [
    {:ferricstore, "~> 0.3.5"},
    {:ferricstore_server, "~> 0.3.5"}
  ]
end

Configuration

# config/config.exs
config :ferricstore, :port, 6379
config :ferricstore, :data_dir, "/var/lib/ferricstore"
config :ferricstore, :shard_count, 0  # 0 = auto-detect from CPU cores
config :ferricstore, :max_memory_bytes, 8_589_934_592  # 8 GB
config :ferricstore, :eviction_policy, :allkeys_lru

The server's runtime.exs also sets protected_mode: true, which prevents destructive operations (like FLUSHALL) from being executed without authentication. This defaults to false in the library and is only enabled by the server:

# config/runtime.exs (in ferricstore_server)
config :ferricstore, :protected_mode, true

Connecting

redis-cli

redis-cli -p 6379
127.0.0.1:6379> PING
PONG
127.0.0.1:6379> SET greeting "hello world"
OK
127.0.0.1:6379> GET greeting
"hello world"

Redix (Elixir)

{:ok, conn} = Redix.start_link(host: "localhost", port: 6379)
{:ok, "OK"} = Redix.command(conn, ["SET", "key", "value"])
{:ok, "value"} = Redix.command(conn, ["GET", "key"])

Any Redis Client

FerricStore speaks RESP3, so any Redis client library works:

# Python (redis-py)
import redis
r = redis.Redis(host='localhost', port=6379)
r.set('key', 'value')
r.get('key')  # b'value'

// Node.js (ioredis)
const Redis = require('ioredis');
const redis = new Redis(6379);
await redis.set('key', 'value');
await redis.get('key');  // 'value'

// Go (go-redis)
rdb := redis.NewClient(&redis.Options{Addr: "localhost:6379"})
rdb.Set(ctx, "key", "value", 0)
rdb.Get(ctx, "key")  // "value"

TLS Configuration

FerricStore supports encrypted connections via a separate TLS listener.

Generate Certificates (Development)

# Self-signed CA + server cert for local testing
openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:4096 -days 365 -nodes \
  -keyout ca-key.pem -out ca-cert.pem \
  -subj "/CN=FerricStore CA"

openssl req -newkey rsa:4096 -nodes \
  -keyout server-key.pem -out server-req.pem \
  -subj "/CN=localhost"

openssl x509 -req -in server-req.pem -days 365 \
  -CA ca-cert.pem -CAkey ca-key.pem -CAcreateserial \
  -out server-cert.pem

Configure TLS

# config/config.exs (or runtime.exs)
config :ferricstore, :tls_port, 6380
config :ferricstore, :tls_cert_file, "/etc/ssl/ferricstore/server-cert.pem"
config :ferricstore, :tls_key_file, "/etc/ssl/ferricstore/server-key.pem"

# Optional: CA cert for mutual TLS (client certificate authentication)
config :ferricstore, :tls_ca_cert_file, "/etc/ssl/ferricstore/ca-cert.pem"

# Optional: reject plaintext connections entirely
config :ferricstore, :require_tls, true

Connect via TLS

redis-cli -p 6380 --tls \
  --cert /path/to/client-cert.pem \
  --key /path/to/client-key.pem \
  --cacert /path/to/ca-cert.pem

# Redix with TLS
{:ok, conn} = Redix.start_link(
  host: "localhost",
  port: 6380,
  ssl: true,
  socket_opts: [
    certfile: "/path/to/client-cert.pem",
    keyfile: "/path/to/client-key.pem",
    cacertfile: "/path/to/ca-cert.pem"
  ]
)

Health Endpoints

FerricStore exposes an HTTP health endpoint (default port 4000) with:

Readiness Probe

GET /health/ready

Returns 200 OK with a JSON body when the node is ready:

{
  "status": "ok",
  "shard_count": 4,
  "shards": [
    {"index": 0, "status": "ok", "keys": 1234},
    {"index": 1, "status": "ok", "keys": 1189},
    {"index": 2, "status": "ok", "keys": 1201},
    {"index": 3, "status": "ok", "keys": 1156}
  ],
  "uptime_seconds": 3600
}

Returns 503 Service Unavailable during startup.

Kubernetes Configuration

readinessProbe:
  httpGet:
    path: /health/ready
    port: 4000
  initialDelaySeconds: 2
  periodSeconds: 5

livenessProbe:
  httpGet:
    path: /health/live
    port: 4000
  initialDelaySeconds: 10
  periodSeconds: 10

HTML Dashboard

A human-friendly health dashboard is available at:

GET /dashboard

The dashboard has sidebar navigation with the following pages:

• Overview (/dashboard) -- top bar, cache perf, shards, memory, connections. Auto-refreshes every 2s.
• Slow Log (/dashboard/slowlog) -- full slow log table. Refreshes 5s.
• Merge Status (/dashboard/merge) -- per-shard merge/compaction. Refreshes 10s.
• Storage (/dashboard/storage) -- per-shard on-disk storage details.
• Raft Consensus (/dashboard/raft) -- per-shard Raft health, leader, term, applied/commit index. Refreshes 5s.
• Config (/dashboard/config) -- namespace config overrides.
• Clients (/dashboard/clients) -- active client connections with IP, age, idle time. Refreshes 5s.
• Key Prefixes (/dashboard/prefixes) -- key prefix distribution.

Prometheus Metrics

FerricStore exposes Prometheus-compatible metrics with no external dependencies. The metrics text is available via:

Redis Command

redis-cli FERRICSTORE.METRICS

HTTP Endpoint

The health HTTP endpoint also serves metrics at /metrics.

Available Metrics

Prometheus Scrape Config

scrape_configs:
  - job_name: ferricstore
    static_configs:
      - targets: ['localhost:4000']
    metrics_path: /metrics

Connection Handling

Each TCP connection is handled by a Ranch protocol handler with:

• RESP3 parser -- full RESP3 protocol support (HELLO 3 only)
• ACL check -- every command is checked against the authenticated user's permissions
• Command dispatch -- O(1) lookup via compile-time dispatch map
• Configurable socket mode -- socket_active_mode (default: true). Supports true, :once, or an integer N for active: N flow control.
• Sliding window pipeline -- concurrent dispatch of pure commands within a pipeline batch; responses sent in-order as they complete
• Socket tuning -- nodelay: true, recbuf: 65536, sndbuf: 65536, backlog: 1024, keepalive: true

Sendfile Zero-Copy

For large cold values (>64 KB by default), FerricStore uses :file.sendfile/5 to transfer data directly from disk to the TCP socket without copying through BEAM memory. This only applies to cold keys over plain TCP -- hot keys and TLS connections use the normal path.

config :ferricstore_server, :sendfile_threshold, 65_536

Server Commands

INFO

Returns server statistics in Redis INFO format:

redis-cli INFO
redis-cli INFO server
redis-cli INFO memory
redis-cli INFO stats
redis-cli INFO keyspace

CONFIG

redis-cli CONFIG GET maxmemory
redis-cli CONFIG GET "max*"
redis-cli CONFIG SET maxmemory-policy allkeys-lru

SLOWLOG

redis-cli SLOWLOG GET 10    # Last 10 slow commands
redis-cli SLOWLOG LEN       # Number of entries
redis-cli SLOWLOG RESET     # Clear the log

CLIENT

redis-cli CLIENT LIST        # List all connections
redis-cli CLIENT SETNAME myapp
redis-cli CLIENT GETNAME
redis-cli CLIENT ID
redis-cli CLIENT INFO

COMMAND

redis-cli COMMAND             # List all supported commands
redis-cli COMMAND COUNT       # Number of supported commands
redis-cli COMMAND INFO GET    # Info about specific command

Transactions (MULTI/EXEC)

FerricStore supports Redis-compatible optimistic transactions:

redis-cli WATCH mykey
redis-cli MULTI
redis-cli SET mykey "new_value"
redis-cli INCR counter
redis-cli EXEC
# Returns array of results, or nil if WATCH detected a conflict

Pub/Sub

# Terminal 1: Subscribe
redis-cli SUBSCRIBE mychannel

# Terminal 2: Publish
redis-cli PUBLISH mychannel "hello world"

Pattern subscriptions are also supported:

redis-cli PSUBSCRIBE "user:*"

FerricStore-Specific Commands

Cluster Health

redis-cli CLUSTER.HEALTH     # Node health + shard status
redis-cli CLUSTER.STATS      # Cluster-wide statistics

Hot/Cold Ratio

redis-cli FERRICSTORE.HOTNESS   # Hot vs cold read ratio per key

Namespace Configuration

# Set session namespace to 5ms commit window with async durability
redis-cli FERRICSTORE.CONFIG SET session window_ms 5 durability async

# Reset a namespace to defaults
redis-cli FERRICSTORE.CONFIG RESET session

Key Diagnostics

redis-cli FERRICSTORE.KEY_INFO mykey   # Shard, ETS entry, disk location, TTL

Graceful Shutdown

FerricStore handles graceful shutdown:

1. Marks node as not ready (Kubernetes stops routing traffic)
2. Emits [:ferricstore, :node, :shutdown_started] telemetry
3. Flushes pending writes to disk
4. Closes TCP connections
5. Stops Raft groups
6. Supervisor stops all children in reverse order