What does Redis do when it runs out of memory?

Question

If you have virtual memory functionality turned on (EDIT: now deprecated), then Redis starts to store the "not-so-frequently-used" data to disk when memory runs out.

If virtual memory in Redis is disabled (the default) and the maxmemory parameter is set (the default), Redis will not use any more memory than maxmemory allows. If you turn maxmemory off, Redis will start using virtual memory (i.e. swap), and performance will drop tremendously.

Newer versions of Redis have various policies when maxmemory is reached:

• volatile-lru - remove a key among the ones with an expire set, trying to remove keys not recently used.
• volatile-ttl - remove a key among the ones with an expire set, trying to remove keys with short remaining time to live.
• volatile-random - remove a random key among the ones with an expire set.
• allkeys-lru - like volatile-lru, but will remove every kind of key, both normal keys or keys with an expire set.
• allkeys-random - like volatile-random, but will remove every kind of keys, both normal keys and keys with an expire set.

If you pick a policy that only removes keys with an EXPIRE set, then when Redis runs out of memory, it looks like the program just aborts the malloc() operation. That is, if you try to store more data, the write operation simply fails.

Some links for more info:

• http://antirez.com/post/redis-as-LRU-cache.html
• http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2009/10/30/handling-out-of-memory-conditions-in-c/

From redis.conf, version 2.8

# Don't use more memory than the specified amount of bytes.
# When the memory limit is reached Redis will try to remove keys
# according to the eviction policy selected (see maxmemory-policy).
#
# If Redis can't remove keys according to the policy, or if the policy is
# set to 'noeviction', Redis will start to reply with errors to commands
# that would use more memory, like SET, LPUSH, and so on, and will continue
# to reply to read-only commands like GET.
#
# This option is usually useful when using Redis as an LRU cache, or to set
# a hard memory limit for an instance (using the 'noeviction' policy).
#
# WARNING: If you have slaves attached to an instance with maxmemory on,
# the size of the output buffers needed to feed the slaves are subtracted
# from the used memory count, so that network problems / resyncs will
# not trigger a loop where keys are evicted, and in turn the output
# buffer of slaves is full with DELs of keys evicted triggering the deletion
# of more keys, and so forth until the database is completely emptied.
#
# In short... if you have slaves attached it is suggested that you set a lower
# limit for maxmemory so that there is some free RAM on the system for slave
# output buffers (but this is not needed if the policy is 'noeviction').
#
# maxmemory <bytes>

# MAXMEMORY POLICY: how Redis will select what to remove when maxmemory
# is reached. You can select among five behaviors:
#
# volatile-lru -> remove the key with an expire set using an LRU algorithm
# allkeys-lru -> remove any key according to the LRU algorithm
# volatile-random -> remove a random key with an expire set
# allkeys-random -> remove a random key, any key
# volatile-ttl -> remove the key with the nearest expire time (minor TTL)
# noeviction -> don't expire at all, just return an error on write operations
#
# Note: with any of the above policies, Redis will return an error on write
#       operations, when there are no suitable keys for eviction.
#
#       At the date of writing these commands are: set setnx setex append
#       incr decr rpush lpush rpushx lpushx linsert lset rpoplpush sadd
#       sinter sinterstore sunion sunionstore sdiff sdiffstore zadd zincrby
#       zunionstore zinterstore hset hsetnx hmset hincrby incrby decrby
#       getset mset msetnx exec sort
#
# The default is:
#
# maxmemory-policy volatile-lru

Update redis 4.0

127.0.0.1:6379> MEMORY HELP
1) "MEMORY DOCTOR                        - Outputs memory problems report"
2) "MEMORY USAGE <key> [SAMPLES <count>] - Estimate memory usage of key"
3) "MEMORY STATS                         - Show memory usage details"
4) "MEMORY PURGE                         - Ask the allocator to release memory"
5) "MEMORY MALLOC-STATS                  - Show allocator internal stats"

/usr/local/etc/redis.conf

############################## MEMORY MANAGEMENT ################################

# Set a memory usage limit to the specified amount of bytes.
# When the memory limit is reached Redis will try to remove keys
# according to the eviction policy selected (see maxmemory-policy).
#
# If Redis can't remove keys according to the policy, or if the policy is
# set to 'noeviction', Redis will start to reply with errors to commands
# that would use more memory, like SET, LPUSH, and so on, and will continue
# to reply to read-only commands like GET.
#
# This option is usually useful when using Redis as an LRU or LFU cache, or to
# set a hard memory limit for an instance (using the 'noeviction' policy).
#
# WARNING: If you have slaves attached to an instance with maxmemory on,
# the size of the output buffers needed to feed the slaves are subtracted
# from the used memory count, so that network problems / resyncs will
# not trigger a loop where keys are evicted, and in turn the output
# buffer of slaves is full with DELs of keys evicted triggering the deletion
# of more keys, and so forth until the database is completely emptied.
#
# In short... if you have slaves attached it is suggested that you set a lower
# limit for maxmemory so that there is some free RAM on the system for slave
# output buffers (but this is not needed if the policy is 'noeviction').
#
# maxmemory <bytes>

# MAXMEMORY POLICY: how Redis will select what to remove when maxmemory
# is reached. You can select among five behaviors:
#
# volatile-lru -> Evict using approximated LRU among the keys with an expire set.
# allkeys-lru -> Evict any key using approximated LRU.
# volatile-lfu -> Evict using approximated LFU among the keys with an expire set.
# allkeys-lfu -> Evict any key using approximated LFU.
# volatile-random -> Remove a random key among the ones with an expire set.
# allkeys-random -> Remove a random key, any key.
# volatile-ttl -> Remove the key with the nearest expire time (minor TTL)
# noeviction -> Don't evict anything, just return an error on write operations.
#
# LRU means Least Recently Used
# LFU means Least Frequently Used
#
# Both LRU, LFU and volatile-ttl are implemented using approximated
# randomized algorithms.
#
# Note: with any of the above policies, Redis will return an error on write
#       operations, when there are no suitable keys for eviction.
#
#       At the date of writing these commands are: set setnx setex append
#       incr decr rpush lpush rpushx lpushx linsert lset rpoplpush sadd
#       sinter sinterstore sunion sunionstore sdiff sdiffstore zadd zincrby
#       zunionstore zinterstore hset hsetnx hmset hincrby incrby decrby
#       getset mset msetnx exec sort
#
# The default is:
#
# maxmemory-policy noeviction

# LRU, LFU and minimal TTL algorithms are not precise algorithms but approximated
# algorithms (in order to save memory), so you can tune it for speed or
# accuracy. For default Redis will check five keys and pick the one that was
# used less recently, you can change the sample size using the following
# configuration directive.
#
# The default of 5 produces good enough results. 10 Approximates very closely
# true LRU but costs more CPU. 3 is faster but not very accurate.
#
# maxmemory-samples 5

I just recently started reading about Redis, so I'm not positive. But, I did come across a few tidbits that may be useful.

Here's a snippet from http://antirez.com/post/redis-as-LRU-cache.html:

Another way to use Redis as a cache is the maxmemory directive, a feature that allows specifying a maximum amount of memory to use. When new data is added to the server, and the memory limit was already reached, the server will remove some old data deleting a volatile key, that is, a key with an EXPIRE (a timeout) set, even if the key is still far from expiring automatically.

Also, Redis 2.0 has a VM mode where all keys must fit in memory, but the values for the rarely used keys can be on disk:

• http://redis.io/topics/virtual-memory
• http://antirez.com/post/redis-virtual-memory-story.html

If you wonder what Redis (2.8) actually responds when it reaches the maximum defined by its configuration, it looks like this:

$ redis-cli
127.0.0.1:6379> GET 5
"bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb"
127.0.0.1:6379> SET 5 a
(error) OOM command not allowed when used memory > 'maxmemory'.

I recently experienced a no-free-memory situation and my application ground to a halt (writes not possible, reads were possible), running PHP scripts stopped dead in their tracks mid-way and had to be kill -9'd manually (even after memory was made available).

I assumed data loss (or data inconsistency) had occurred so I did a flushdb and restored from backups. Lesson learned? Backups are your friend.