Install Redis on Debian 13 and connect it to Laravel

Redis acts as the cache, the session store and the queue backend of a Laravel application. Debian 13 ships Redis 8, and Laravel 13 talks to it by default through the phpredis extension, which is faster than the predis PHP library recommended for years.

This chapter follows on from installing Laravel on a Debian server, in the Web development track. Installation and integration checked on Debian 13 “trixie” with Laravel 13.30.1, on 2 September 2026.

Installing Redis and the PHP extension

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y redis-server php-redis

Two packages, two jobs: redis-server is the server, php-redis is the extension that lets PHP talk to it. Check both:

redis-server --version
redis-cli ping
php -r 'echo extension_loaded("redis") ? phpversion("redis") : "absente", PHP_EOL;'

Redis server v=8.0.2 sha=00000000:0 malloc=jemalloc-5.3.0 bits=64
PONG
6.2.0

PONG confirms the service is running and answering. Enable it at boot:

sudo systemctl enable --now redis-server
sudo systemctl status redis-server

Securing it before going any further

A Redis exposed on a public interface with no password can be read and modified by anyone. It is a classic incident, and Debian’s default configuration already covers the essentials, but check it anyway.

sudo nano /etc/redis/redis.conf

# listen on the loopback interface only
bind 127.0.0.1 -::1

# reject unauthenticated connections coming from outside
protected-mode yes

# password, essential as soon as Redis is no longer on the same machine
requirepass un_mot_de_passe_long_et_aleatoire

sudo systemctl restart redis-server

If the application and Redis are on the same machine, keep bind 127.0.0.1: it is the safest setup, and the password becomes a second barrier rather than the only one.

Configuring Laravel

The keys in the .env file have been renamed over the versions. Here are the Laravel 13 ones, as they appear in the file generated at install time:

REDIS_CLIENT=phpredis
REDIS_HOST=127.0.0.1
REDIS_PASSWORD=null
REDIS_PORT=6379

CACHE_STORE=redis
SESSION_DRIVER=redis
QUEUE_CONNECTION=redis

Reload the configuration and check what the application actually uses. Careful, the config cache freezes these values:

php artisan config:clear
php artisan tinker --execute='
  printf("client  : %s\n", config("database.redis.client"));
  printf("cache   : %s\n", config("cache.default"));
  printf("queue   : %s\n", config("queue.default"));
  printf("session : %s\n", config("session.driver"));
'

client  : phpredis
cache   : redis
queue   : redis
session : redis

Checking that it really works

A setting that is accepted is not a setting that works. Write a value and read it back:

php artisan tinker --execute='
  Cache::put("gk_test", "valeur", 60);
  printf("Cache::get   : %s\n", Cache::get("gk_test"));
  printf("Redis::ping  : %s\n", Illuminate\Support\Facades\Redis::ping());
  printf("version      : %s\n", Illuminate\Support\Facades\Redis::info()["redis_version"]);
'

The full facade name is required here: once the phpredis extension is installed, Redis refers to the extension’s class, Laravel no longer registers its alias, and a plain Redis::ping() fails with “Non-static method Redis::ping() cannot be called statically”.

Cache::get   : valeur
Redis::ping  : 1
version      : 8.0.2

redis-cli -n 1 --scan

laravel-database-laravel-cache-gk_test

The first prefix comes from database.redis.options.prefix, the second from cache.prefix. Database 1 is set by database.redis.cache.database, which keeps the cache away from the queues and the sessions.

phpredis or predis

Go for phpredis as soon as you administer the machine: the protocol is handled in C. predis remains useful on shared hosting where you cannot install an extension. In that case:

composer require predis/predis

REDIS_CLIENT=predis

Processing the queues

Switching QUEUE_CONNECTION over to Redis is not enough: you need a process that consumes the jobs.

php artisan queue:work redis --tries=3

The logs of those processes live under storage/logs, the path returned by storage_path() among the application paths. In production, that process has to be supervised so it restarts after a crash or a deployment. Supervisor is the usual tool, but a systemd unit does the job just as well. Remember to restart the workers after every deployment, otherwise they keep running the old code loaded in memory:

php artisan queue:restart