Redis for Windows as a Memcache successor for PHP applications and as a queue driver for Laravel

INSTALL4Windows.md

Install Redis as a service on Windows

Installation instructions

1. Download and extract the last Redis version (2.8.4)
2. Copy all extracted binaries to c:\redis\bin
3. Create another folder at c:\redis\inst1
4. Download and extract the RedisWatcher binaries from the 2.4 branch
5. Run InstallWatcher.msi with administrator rights. This should create a Windows service called Redis watcher.
6. Open up the Windows Services console and start the Redis watcher service.
7. (optional) RedisWatcher should have installed to C:\Program Files (x86)\RedisWatcher. There you'll find a config file called watcher.conf, which you can edit to set up additional instances, use different paths than I specified in steps 2 & 3, etc. You will not need to restart the service for changes to take effect.

Source: http://stackoverflow.com/a/20200022 and http://msopentech.com/blog/2014/03/24/updates-released-redis-windows

Add C:\redis\bin to Path Environment Variable

Computer->Properties->Advanced->Env Variables->Path : ;C:\redis\bin;

Check if Redis is working

$ redis-cli ping
PONG

Running redis-cli followed by a command name and its arguments will send this command to the Redis instance running on localhost at port 6379. You can change the host and port used by redis-cli, just try the --help option to check the usage information.

Another interesting way to run redis-cli is without arguments: the program will start into an interactive mode where you can type different commands:

$ redis-cli                                                                
redis 127.0.0.1:6379> ping
PONG
redis 127.0.0.1:6379> set mykey somevalue
OK
redis 127.0.0.1:6379> get mykey
"somevalue"

MemcacheReplacement4PHP.md

Memcache replacement for PHP

Read this article to config Redis like Memcache.

Use this PHP class which mimic Memcache class API with Redis and PhpRedis extension: MemcacheRedis

TODO:

1. Add close() method and a create dummy setCompressThreshold() method
2. Tweak MemcacheRedis class to use Predis instead of PhpRedis. Because it's more portable (Windows support without compiled extension).

RedisQueueDriverLaravel.md

Redis queue for Laravel on Windows

Create a Windows Service with NSSM

1. Download the last pre-release version of Nssm
2. Extract the file win64\nssm.exe in C:\Program Files\nssm.
3. Add ;C:\Program Files\nssm; to the Path environment variable.
4. In a console, run: nssm install my_app_name_queue

• In the Application tab: select for the Path field C:\my_application_root_path\start_queue.bat.
• In the Dependencies tab: Add RedisWatcherSvc service name.

Or create a Windows Service with old Microsoft tools

1. http://serverfault.com/a/469205 or http://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/Basis/How+To+Install+a+Batch+file+as+Windows+Service

start_queue.bat

rem Copy this file in your Laravel application root path
C:
cd C:\my_application_root_path
php artisan queue:listen