Running Valkey 9.1 on Fedora: install, start, connect, and how it relates to Redis

On Fedora, the Redis-style service you install is Valkey.

dnf list --available redis

There is no redis package. What the repositories offer is:

dnf list --available valkey

valkey.x86_64   9.1.2-1.fc45   fedora

Valkey is the community fork that took over after Redis 7.2 (under the Linux Foundation), and Fedora made it the default in-memory database.

Install and start

sudo dnf install valkey

Small package: 1.9 MiB download, 6.6 MiB installed.

Two service units arrive, and neither starts by default:

systemctl list-unit-files | grep -i valkey

valkey-sentinel.service    disabled    disabled
valkey.service             disabled    disabled

valkey.service is the single-node server; valkey-sentinel.service is the high-availability sentinel. Start the main one:

sudo systemctl enable --now valkey
systemctl is-active valkey
valkey-cli ping

active
PONG

PONG means it is alive.

Caution

systemctl enable --now also makes it start at boot. For a quick trial, sudo systemctl start valkey is enough.

Version and build details

valkey-server --version

Valkey server v=9.1.2 sha=00000000:0 malloc=jemalloc-5.3.0 bits=64 build=fa6c1330cfae654d

Worth reading:

• jemalloc-5.3.0 — Valkey uses jemalloc instead of glibc malloc, one reason its memory fragmentation behaviour is good
• bits=64 — a 64-bit build
• sha=00000000:0 — build metadata stripped by packaging, not an error

Loopback only by default

ss -lntp | grep 6379

LISTEN 0  511  127.0.0.1:6379  0.0.0.0:*
LISTEN 0  511     [::1]:6379     [::]:*

Or ask the server itself:

valkey-cli config get bind

bind
127.0.0.1 -::1

127.0.0.1 plus the IPv6 loopback — unreachable from outside. That is Fedora’s default policy: a database should not be exposed by accident.

To serve other hosts, edit /etc/valkey/valkey.conf:

bind 0.0.0.0 -::
protected-mode yes

Then sudo systemctl restart valkey.

Caution

Valkey has no password by default. Before binding 0.0.0.0 you must set requirepass, or you are publishing the database to the network — the most common way Redis-style services get compromised. Restrict sources in firewalld as well.

Basic reads and writes

valkey-cli set demo "hello fedora"
valkey-cli get demo

OK
hello fedora

Inspect the keyspace:

valkey-cli info keyspace

# Keyspace
db0:keys=1,expires=0,avg_ttl=0,keys_with_volatile_items=0

db0:keys=1 is one key; expires=0 means no TTL set.

Where the config lives

rpm -ql valkey | grep '\.conf$'

/etc/valkey/sentinel.conf
/etc/valkey/valkey.conf
/usr/lib/sysusers.d/valkey.conf

The main file is /etc/valkey/valkey.conf — not the Redis-era /etc/redis/redis.conf.

Scripts that still call redis commands

There is no redis package, but there is a compatibility one:

dnf list --available 'valkey-compat*'

valkey-compat-redis.noarch   9.1.2-1.fc45   fedora

Install it and scripts calling redis-cli / redis-server keep working, executing Valkey underneath.

Legacy command	Actually runs
redis-cli	valkey-cli
redis-server	valkey-server
redis-sentinel	valkey-sentinel

Note

The compat package only fixes command names, not the protocol — Valkey speaks RESP, so existing client libraries (Python redis, Go go-redis) connect to 6379 unchanged.

Migrating from Redis

Item	Note
config path	/etc/redis/redis.conf → /etc/valkey/valkey.conf
service name	redis.service → valkey.service
data directory	check dir, do not point the new service at an empty path
persistence files	RDB/AOF formats compatible; dump.rdb can be moved over
auth	no password by default — add requirepass after migrating
clients	protocol compatible, no library changes

Common traps

Symptom	Cause
valkey-cli cannot connect	service not started; systemctl start valkey
remote 6379 times out	default bind is 127.0.0.1; change bind
no redis-cli even with valkey installed	install valkey-compat-redis
data gone after restart	persistence off; check save and appendonly
memory climbs until the box dies	no maxmemory set; Valkey does not throttle itself

Related pages

• Fedora as a server — service basics
• firewalld — opening 6379 correctly
• SELinux — labels when moving the data directory
• Official: Valkey documentation