In Kubernetes(K8s) cluster, 1 or more containers form a pod and every container in the pod can access other container’s port just like apps in the same local host. For example:

- pod1
  - nginx1
  - gunicorn1, port:8000

- pod2
  - nginx2
  - gunicorn2, port:8000

So nginx1 can access gunicorn1’s port using localhost:8000 and nginx2 can access gunicorn2, etc… However nginx1 can’t see gunicorn2 using localhost.

When it comes to cache, like redis, I would like a shared redis container(or cluster later) so less memory is wasted and the cache doesn’t need to be warmed for each pod. The structure will look like:

- pod1
  - nginx1
  - gunicorn1
- pod2
  - nginx2
  - gunicorn2
- pod3
  - redis

To grant both gunicorns to access redis, redis needs to be a service:

---
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
  name: redis-svc
  labels:
    app: redis
    role: cache
spec:
  type: NodePort
  ports:
    - port: 6379
  selector:
    app: redis
    role: cache

And the deployment to support the service looks like:

---
apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: redis-deploy
spec:
  replicas: 1
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: redis
        role: cache
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: redis
          image: redis:4
          resources:
            requests:
              memory: 200Mi
          ports:
            - containerPort: 6379

Then in the settings.py of the django app running in gunicorn container, redis can be accessed via ENVs setup by K8s:

CACHES = {
  "default": {
    "BACKEND": "django_redis.cache.RedisCache",
    "LOCATION": "redis://{0}:{1}/1".format(os.environ['REDIS_SVC_SERVICE_HOST'], os.environ['REDIS_SVC_SERVICE_PORT']),
    "OPTIONS": {
      "CLIENT_CLASS": "django_redis.client.DefaultClient"
    },
  }
}

🙂