Redis in Rust

redis.rs is a lightweight, high-performance Redis clone, built from the ground up in Rust. It focuses on low-level control, concurrency, and performance — designed as both a Redis clone and a deep learning project.

⚙️ Architecture Overview

• Clients connect via raw TCP on port 6379
• Each connection is handled asynchronously using Tokio
• Custom RESP protocol parser (hand-built, zero third-party dependencies)
• Shared in-memory state managed via Arc<Mutex<_>>
• Pluggable persistence layer using a Persister trait
  • Default: JsonPersister (writes to db.json)
• Boot-time disk hydration for restoring previous state
• Full Pub/Sub system using async channels

✅ Features

Core Infrastructure

• Asynchronous TCP server with Tokio
• Manual RESP protocol parser
• In-memory database with native Rust data structures
• Thread-safe concurrency using Arc<Mutex<_>>
• Key expiry and TTL with background workers
• Pluggable persistence with disk write support
• Real-time Pub/Sub broadcasting
• Boot-time state rehydration

Supported Commands

String Operations

PING, ECHO, SET, GET, DEL, EXISTS, INCR, INCRBY, DECR, DECRBY

Expiry & TTL

EXPIRE, TTL, PERSIST

List Operations

LPUSH, RPUSH, LPOP, RPOP, LRANGE, LLEN, LINDEX, LSET

Set Operations

SADD, SREM, SMEMBERS, SISMEMBER, SCARD

Hash Operations

HSET, HGET, HDEL, HKEYS, HVALS, HGETALL, HEXISTS, HLEN

Pub/Sub

PUBLISH, SUBSCRIBE

Miscellaneous

KEYS (supports basic pattern matching)

🧪 Running Locally

Start the server:

bashCopy
cargo run

Use Redis CLI to interact:

bashCopy
redis-cli -p 6379

Example session:

redisCopy
SET name gigachad
GET name
INCR counter
LPUSH queue task1
HSET user name yash
SUBSCRIBE news
PUBLISH news "backend villain strikes again"

🌱 Planned Enhancements

• Pattern-based Pub/Sub, multi-channel support
• Config file support (custom ports, persistence toggles)
• Key eviction strategies (LRU, LFU)
• RDB-style memory snapshots
• Append-Only File (AOF) persistence

🎯 Motivation

Redis is a foundational tool in modern backend systems. With Rust’s focus on memory safety and performance, this project was an opportunity to explore:

• Systems programming
• Network protocols
• Concurrency models
• Data persistence strategies

RizzlerDB is more than a clone — it’s a backend engineer’s playground for mastering the core ideas behind real-time databases and async server design.

🔗 Repository

GitHub: https://github.com/pixperk/redis-in-rust

🙌 Acknowledgements

• Redis Documentation
• RESP Protocol Spec
• The Rust and Tokio communities