Add redis-cli static binary build & distribution tooling by AngelYanev · Pull Request #1 · redis/redis-cli-static

AngelYanev · 2026-07-06T07:29:28Z

Description

This repository builds and distributes standalone, statically linked
redis-cli binaries for Linux and macOS (amd64/arm64) and publishes them —
together with a curl | sh installer — to packages.redis.io.

redis-cli is frequently wanted on its own — on a laptop, a CI runner, an app
container, or a jump host — without installing or building the whole Redis
server, and without a package that also pulls in redis-server. The existing
options each have friction:

Distro packages (apt/dnf) are often outdated, tie the client version
to the server package, and require root.
Building from source needs a toolchain and pulls all of Redis.
Docker isn't always available or appropriate for a one-off client.

A single static binary removes that friction: it has no runtime
dependencies. Runs on any Linux distro including minimal/distroless/container images, and
installs in one command. Versions are pinnable via a stable URL, matching how
Redis already ships source tarballs.

What's included

build.sh — fetch a Redis version and build one static target → raw stripped
binary + .sha256.
publish.sh — upload artifacts + install.sh to S3, with stable/latest
pointers.
install.sh — OS/arch-detecting installer; checksum-verified; needs only
curl/wget (no tar/gzip, so it works on the most minimal images);
all logic wrapped in main() for curl | sh truncation safety.
test-distros.sh — Docker smoke tests across many distros.
.github/workflows/ — release_build_and_test.yml and release_publish.yml
reusing build-and-test.yml, matching the redis-debian/redis-rpm layout.
release_type: internal publishes to the staging bucket at its S3 URL;
release_type: public publishes to the production bucket served at
https://packages.redis.io.
README.md, LICENSE, .editorconfig, .redis_version, .gitignore.

Versioning

The version is the Redis version — this repo adds no numbering of its own.
Each build is published under an immutable, version-pinned path; stable and
latest are moving pointers to the newest promoted stable release (stable
matches the download.redis.io naming, latest the Docker one). Pre-releases
(e.g. 8.8-rc1) are installable by exact version but never move stable.

Install examples:

# latest stable
curl -fsSL https://packages.redis.io/redis-cli/install.sh | sh

# a specific version
curl -fsSL https://packages.redis.io/redis-cli/install.sh | REDIS_CLI_VERSION=8.4.4 sh

# direct, version-pinned download (no installer)
curl -fsSL https://packages.redis.io/redis-cli/8.4.4/redis-cli-8.4.4-linux-amd64 -o redis-cli

Peter-Sh · 2026-07-06T09:25:27Z

+    if dl "${URL}.sha256" "$TMP/redis-cli.sha256" 2>/dev/null; then
+        info "verifying checksum"
+        expected="$(awk '{print $1}' "$TMP/redis-cli.sha256")"
+        actual="$(sha256 "$TMP/redis-cli")"


This is maybe an error, there is no sha256 tool at least on Linux. Standard tool is named sha256sum it could calculate and check the sums at the same time

This is actually a function defined in lines 59-65. But now I am actually thinking that its better to refactor this and rename it properly to avoid confusions.

Peter-Sh · 2026-07-06T09:35:34Z

+    info "downloading $URL"
+    dl "$URL" "$TMP/redis-cli" || err "download failed: $URL"
+
+    if dl "${URL}.sha256" "$TMP/redis-cli.sha256" 2>/dev/null; then


In general installers are hard-coding sums into the script. For example astral uv installer or nix installer.
But there are examples of installers which doesn't check any sums, like rust installer or bun installer. Rust installer relies on TLS trying to force higher TLS versions and to prevent fallback to http, bun installer just doesn't care.
Rust is using commands like this: curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs

To be honest I don't know which is the best way to build a trust when using this form of installation. So just leaving this as a side-note.

Peter-Sh · 2026-07-06T10:05:04Z

+# producing <src-root>/src/redis-cli. Passes static flags to the upstream
+# Redis Makefile (we don't own it, so there's no custom target).
+compile() {
+    co_os="$1"; co_arch="$2"; co_src="$3"


co_arch variable is unused, I suggest using shellcheck to validate all the scripts

Peter-Sh · 2026-07-06T10:08:14Z

+# fetch_redis <ref> <dest>: download + extract the Redis source into <dest>.
+fetch_redis() {
+    fr_ref="$1"; fr_dest="$2"
+    fr_url="https://github.com/redis/redis/archive/${fr_ref}.tar.gz"


Maybe worth hard-coding redis checksum as in docker and debian (but not rpm ha-ha, I should create a bug)

Peter-Sh · 2026-07-06T10:19:51Z

+        install -m 0755 "$TMP/redis-cli" "$DEST/redis-cli"
+    elif command -v sudo >/dev/null 2>&1; then
+        info "$DEST is not writable, using sudo"
+        sudo install -m 0755 "$TMP/redis-cli" "$DEST/redis-cli"


If DEST it not writable it may have not been created by mkdir since it runs without sudo and the install would fail.

Peter-Sh · 2026-07-06T10:21:40Z

@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash


Maybe worth running this as a part of CI

AngelYanev force-pushed the add-redis-cli-static branch 2 times, most recently from 20d8cb5 to b296cf1 Compare July 6, 2026 08:13

Add redis-cli static binary build & distribution tooling

f37fce2

AngelYanev force-pushed the add-redis-cli-static branch from b296cf1 to f37fce2 Compare July 6, 2026 08:16

hilabarkai reviewed Jul 6, 2026

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Comment thread .github/workflows/release_build_and_test.yml

hilabarkai reviewed Jul 6, 2026

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Comment thread .github/workflows/release_publish.yml

Peter-Sh reviewed Jul 6, 2026

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Peter-Sh requested changes Jul 6, 2026

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AngelYanev added 2 commits July 6, 2026 15:25

Addressing comments

0b69c46

Pin redis version and sha256

e2456b2

Peter-Sh approved these changes Jul 6, 2026

View reviewed changes

AngelYanev merged commit b8f1500 into unstable Jul 6, 2026
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AngelYanev commented Jul 6, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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Description

What's included

Versioning

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Peter-Sh Jul 6, 2026 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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AngelYanev commented Jul 6, 2026 •

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Peter-Sh Jul 6, 2026 •

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