Connect to your Key Value Store instance

Prerequisites

• You have a running instance of STACKIT Key Value Store. If not, you can start with Create and manage instances for Key Value Store.
• You have a user with proper permissions for the database in your instance. If not, you can create one with Create and manage credentials for Key Value Store.

Connect to your key-value store instance

valkey-cli

The preferred way to install the client tools is through the package manager of your system. For Microsoft Windows, you need to download Valkey and select the appropriate client installation options.

After installing, open a shell of your choice and connect to your database. The valkey-cli command supports the connection string format. You need the connection string and the endpoint of your instance to provide the necessary flags. You can look up all these parameters in the Credentials tab of your instance. You will need to extract the endpoint from the connection string.

To extract the endpoint from the connection string, you need to copy the desired information according to the format. The connection string has the following format:

rediss://<Username>:<Password>@<Endpoint>:<Port>

valkey-cli -u <Connection String> --tls --sni <Endpoint> --cacert /path/to/ca.pem

If you don’t want to expose the password directly in the command line history, you should use this connection format instead:

valkey-cli -h <Endpoint> -p <Port> --user <Username> --sni <Endpoint> --askpass --tls --cacert /path/to/ca.pem

The console will show something like this:

kvd4219b0-master-1.data.eu01.onstackit.cloud:53137>

Now type ping to see if you are connected successfully:

kvd4219b0-master-1.data.eu01.onstackit.cloud:53137> ping

If you are connected properly, the database will answer with:

PONG

Now you can start using the database.

If you receive the error “Reached the max retries per request limit (which is 1). Refer to ‘maxRetriesPerRequest’ option for details”, double-check your ACL settings.

Press CTRL + D to close the connection and return to your command prompt.

Redis Insight

Redis Insight is a GUI tool used to access and manage the database. Follow the instructions on the Redis Insight install page or install it from the package manager of your operating system, if available.

After installing, open Redis Insight. Copy the connection string you saved during the user creation step.

1. After opening Redis Insight click on + Add Redis database.
2. Paste the connection URI/URL you obtained in the Create credentials section, into the Connection URL field.
3. Then click on Connection Settings and switch to the Security tab
4. Click on Use SNI and leave the prefilled field as it is.
5. Ensure Use TLS is enabled.
6. Click on Add Redis Database to establish the connection.

Handling TLS certificates

Depending on where your Key Value Store instance is hosted, you require a specific CA (Certificate Authority) certificate to establish your secure TLS connection.

Exposed services (STACKIT portal)

If you created your instance through the STACKIT Portal, the service uses public certificates issued by SwissSign.

• Public projects: Modern operating systems natively trust SwissSign. You can usually connect by using the --tls flag without specifying a certificate. If your system does not trust it (e.g., minimal Docker containers), you must download the SwissSign Root and Intermediate CAs from the SwissSign Repository and pass them through the --cacert flag.
• Internal projects (Schwarz): Corporate devices natively trust the internal network certificates by default. No manual certificate configuration is required.

Cloud Foundry runtime

If your database runs within the Cloud Foundry runtime, it uses a private Certificate Authority. You must extract this certificate from your service key to connect.

1. Generate or view your Cloud Foundry service key.

2. Locate the cacrt field in the JSON output.

3. Copy the entire certificate string (including -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- and -----END CERTIFICATE-----).

4. Replace the \n characters with actual line breaks and save the output to a file named cf_ca.pem.

5. When connecting through the CLI, append the certificate to your command:

   valkey-cli -h <Endpoint> -p <Port> --user <Username> --askpass --tls --cacert /path/to/cf_ca.pem