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Manage SSL connectivity

Manage SSL connectivity for your Aiven for Caching service by enabling secure connections and configuring stunnel for clients without SSL support.

Client support for SSL-encrypted connections​

Default support​

Aiven for Caching uses SSL encrypted connections by default. This is indicated by the rediss:// (with double s) prefix in the Service URI on the Aiven Console.

Since Redis 6, the redis-cli tool supports SSL connections. You can connect directly to your service using:

redis-cli -u rediss://username:password@host:port

Alternatively, you can use the third-party Redli tool:

redli -u rediss://username:password@host:port

Not every Redis client supports SSL-encrypted connections. In such cases, disabling or bypassing SSL is possible but not recommended. You can use one of the following options to achieve this.

Set up stunnel process​

Set up a stunnel process on the client to manage SSL settings on the database side while hiding it from the client.

Use the following stunnel configuration, for example stunnel.conf, to set up a stunnel process.

client = yes
foreground = yes
debug = info
delay = yes

[redis]
accept = 127.0.0.1:6380
connect = myredis.testproject.aivencloud.com:28173
TIMEOUTclose = 0
; For old services only. New ones use Let's Encrypt and there's no
; CA cert available from Aiven console. Most environments trust
; Let's Encrypt by default without any explicit CAfile config.
; CAfile = /path/to/optional/project/cacert/that/you/can/download/from/aiven/console

For details about the global options of the stunnel configuration, see the Stunnel Global Options. More details about setting up such a process are available on the Stunnel website page.

For service-level option, the following parameters are configured:

  • accept => *[host:]port*: Accept connections on the specified address.
  • connect => *[host:]port*: Connect to a remote address.
  • TIMEOUTclose => *seconds*: Time to wait for close_notify.
note

Adjust settings according to your service. On the Overview page, the Connection information section lists your Host and Port to configure the connection.

HAProxy terminates SSL connections before forwarding them to Aiven for Caching. The HAProxy connection timeout is set to 300 seconds (5 minutes) by default, matching the redis_timeout value. This prevents idle connections from staying open too long. You can adjust the redis_timeout value in the service's Advanced configuration section in the Aiven Console.

Allow plain-text connections​

As an alternative to SSL, you can enable plain-text connections.

  1. In the service's Overview page, click Service settings.
  2. Go to the Advanced configuration section.
  3. Set redis_ssl to false.
warning

Enabling plain-text connections compromises the security of your Aiven for Caching service. Disabling SSL allows potential eavesdroppers to access sensitive credentials and data.

After these changes, the Service URI will change to a new URL, starting with the redis:// prefix (removing the extra 's'). This indicates a direct, non-SSL connection to the Aiven for Caching service.