Home apps Containers / valkey-sentinel: README

Containers / valkey-sentinel: README

Last updated on Aug 05, 2025

Bitnami package for Valkey Sentinel

What is Valkey Sentinel?

Valkey Sentinel provides high availability for Valkey. Valkey Sentinel also provides other collateral tasks such as monitoring, notifications and acts as a configuration provider for clients.

Overview of Valkey Sentinel Trademarks: This software listing is packaged by Bitnami. The respective trademarks mentioned in the offering are owned by the respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

TL;DR

docker run --name valkey-sentinel -e VALKEY_MASTER_HOST=valkey bitnami/valkey-sentinel:latest

Warning: This quick setup is only intended for development environments. You are encouraged to change the insecure default credentials and check out the available configuration options in the Environment Variables section for a more secure deployment.

Why use Bitnami Images?

  • Bitnami closely tracks upstream source changes and promptly publishes new versions of this image using our automated systems.
  • With Bitnami images the latest bug fixes and features are available as soon as possible.
  • Bitnami containers, virtual machines and cloud images use the same components and configuration approach - making it easy to switch between formats based on your project needs.
  • All our images are based on minideb -a minimalist Debian based container image that gives you a small base container image and the familiarity of a leading Linux distribution- or scratch -an explicitly empty image-.
  • All Bitnami images available in Docker Hub are signed with Notation. Check this post to know how to verify the integrity of the images.
  • Bitnami container images are released on a regular basis with the latest distribution packages available.

Looking to use Valkey Sentinel in production? Try VMware Tanzu Application Catalog, the commercial edition of the Bitnami catalog.

Why use a non-root container?

Non-root container images add an extra layer of security and are generally recommended for production environments. However, because they run as a non-root user, privileged tasks are typically off-limits. Learn more about non-root containers in our docs.

Supported tags and respective Dockerfile links

Learn more about the Bitnami tagging policy and the difference between rolling tags and immutable tags in our documentation page.

You can see the equivalence between the different tags by taking a look at the tags-info.yaml file present in the branch folder, i.e bitnami/ASSET/BRANCH/DISTRO/tags-info.yaml.

Subscribe to project updates by watching the bitnami/containers GitHub repo.

Get this image

The recommended way to get the Bitnami Valkey Sentinel Docker Image is to pull the prebuilt image from the Docker Hub Registry.

docker pull bitnami/valkey-sentinel:latest

To use a specific version, you can pull a versioned tag. You can view the list of available versions in the Docker Hub Registry.

docker pull bitnami/valkey-sentinel:[TAG]

If you wish, you can also build the image yourself by cloning the repository, changing to the directory containing the Dockerfile and executing the docker build command. Remember to replace the APP, VERSION and OPERATING-SYSTEM path placeholders in the example command below with the correct values.

git clone https://github.com/bitnami/containers.git
cd bitnami/APP/VERSION/OPERATING-SYSTEM
docker build -t bitnami/APP:latest .

Connecting to other containers

Using Docker container networking, a Valkey server running inside a container can easily be accessed by your application containers.

Containers attached to the same network can communicate with each other using the container name as the hostname.

Using the Command Line

In this example, we will create a Valkey Sentinel instance that will monitor a Valkey instance that is running on the same docker network.

Step 1: Create a network

docker network create app-tier --driver bridge

Step 2: Launch the Valkey instance

Use the --network app-tier argument to the docker run command to attach the Valkey container to the app-tier network.

docker run -d --name valkey-server \
    -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
    --network app-tier \
    bitnami/valkey:latest

Step 3: Launch your Valkey Sentinel instance

Finally we create a new container instance to launch the Valkey client and connect to the server created in the previous step:

docker run -it --rm \
    -e VALKEY_MASTER_HOST=valkey-server \
    --network app-tier \
    bitnami/valkey-sentinel:latest

Configuration

Environment variables

Customizable environment variables

Name Description Default Value
VALKEY_SENTINEL_DATA_DIR Valkey data directory ${VALKEY_SENTINEL_VOLUME_DIR}/data
VALKEY_SENTINEL_DISABLE_COMMANDS Commands to disable in Valkey nil
VALKEY_SENTINEL_DATABASE Default Valkey database valkey
VALKEY_SENTINEL_AOF_ENABLED Enable AOF yes
VALKEY_SENTINEL_HOST Valkey Sentinel host nil
VALKEY_SENTINEL_MASTER_NAME Valkey Sentinel master name nil
VALKEY_SENTINEL_PORT_NUMBER Valkey Sentinel host port $VALKEY_SENTINEL_DEFAULT_PORT_NUMBER
VALKEY_SENTINEL_QUORUM Minimum number of sentinel nodes in order to reach a failover decision 2
VALKEY_SENTINEL_DOWN_AFTER_MILLISECONDS Time (in milliseconds) to consider a node to be down 60000
VALKEY_SENTINEL_FAILOVER_TIMEOUT Specifies the failover timeout (in milliseconds) 180000
VALKEY_SENTINEL_MASTER_REBOOT_DOWN_AFTER_PERIOD Specifies the timeout (in milliseconds) for rebooting a master 0
VALKEY_SENTINEL_RESOLVE_HOSTNAMES Enables hostnames support yes
VALKEY_SENTINEL_ANNOUNCE_HOSTNAMES Announce hostnames no
ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD Allow password-less access no
VALKEY_SENTINEL_PASSWORD Password for Valkey nil
VALKEY_MASTER_USER Valkey master node username nil
VALKEY_MASTER_PASSWORD Valkey master node password nil
VALKEY_SENTINEL_ANNOUNCE_IP IP address used to gossip its presence nil
VALKEY_SENTINEL_ANNOUNCE_PORT Port used to gossip its presence nil
VALKEY_SENTINEL_TLS_ENABLED Enable TLS for Valkey authentication no
VALKEY_SENTINEL_TLS_PORT_NUMBER Valkey TLS port (requires VALKEY_SENTINEL_ENABLE_TLS=yes) 26379
VALKEY_SENTINEL_TLS_CERT_FILE Valkey TLS certificate file nil
VALKEY_SENTINEL_TLS_KEY_FILE Valkey TLS key file nil
VALKEY_SENTINEL_TLS_CA_FILE Valkey TLS CA file nil
VALKEY_SENTINEL_TLS_DH_PARAMS_FILE Valkey TLS DH parameter file nil
VALKEY_SENTINEL_TLS_AUTH_CLIENTS Enable Valkey TLS client authentication yes
VALKEY_MASTER_HOST Valkey master host (used by slaves) valkey
VALKEY_MASTER_PORT_NUMBER Valkey master host port (used by slaves) 6379
VALKEY_MASTER_SET Valkey sentinel master set mymaster

Read-only environment variables

Name Description Value
VALKEY_SENTINEL_VOLUME_DIR Persistence base directory /bitnami/valkey-sentinel
VALKEY_SENTINEL_BASE_DIR Valkey installation directory ${BITNAMI_ROOT_DIR}/valkey-sentinel
VALKEY_SENTINEL_CONF_DIR Valkey configuration directory ${VALKEY_SENTINEL_BASE_DIR}/etc
VALKEY_SENTINEL_DEFAULT_CONF_DIR Valkey default configuration directory ${VALKEY_SENTINEL_BASE_DIR}/etc.default
VALKEY_SENTINEL_MOUNTED_CONF_DIR Valkey mounted configuration directory ${VALKEY_SENTINEL_BASE_DIR}/mounted-etc
VALKEY_SENTINEL_CONF_FILE Valkey configuration file ${VALKEY_SENTINEL_CONF_DIR}/sentinel.conf
VALKEY_SENTINEL_LOG_DIR Valkey logs directory ${VALKEY_SENTINEL_BASE_DIR}/logs
VALKEY_SENTINEL_TMP_DIR Valkey temporary directory ${VALKEY_SENTINEL_BASE_DIR}/tmp
VALKEY_SENTINEL_PID_FILE Valkey PID file ${VALKEY_SENTINEL_TMP_DIR}/valkey-sentinel.pid
VALKEY_SENTINEL_BIN_DIR Valkey executables directory ${VALKEY_SENTINEL_BASE_DIR}/bin
VALKEY_SENTINEL_DAEMON_USER Valkey system user valkey
VALKEY_SENTINEL_DAEMON_GROUP Valkey system group valkey
VALKEY_SENTINEL_DEFAULT_PORT_NUMBER Valkey Sentinel host port 26379

Securing Valkey Sentinel traffic

Valkey adds the support for SSL/TLS connections. Should you desire to enable this optional feature, you may use the aforementioned VALKEY_SENTINEL_TLS_* environment variables to configure the application.

When enabling TLS, conventional standard traffic is disabled by default. However this new feature is not mutually exclusive, which means it is possible to listen to both TLS and non-TLS connection simultaneously. To enable non-TLS traffic, set VALKEY_SENTINEL_PORT_NUMBER to another port different than 0.

  1. Using docker run

    $ docker run --name valkey-sentinel \
    -v /path/to/certs:/opt/bitnami/valkey/certs \
    -v /path/to/valkey-sentinel/persistence:/bitnami \
    -e VALKEY_MASTER_HOST=valkey \
    -e VALKEY_SENTINEL_TLS_ENABLED=yes \
    -e VALKEY_SENTINEL_TLS_CERT_FILE=/opt/bitnami/valkey/certs/valkey.crt \
    -e VALKEY_SENTINEL_TLS_KEY_FILE=/opt/bitnami/valkey/certs/valkey.key \
    -e VALKEY_SENTINEL_TLS_CA_FILE=/opt/bitnami/valkey/certs/valkeyCA.crt \
    bitnami/valkey-cluster:latest
    bitnami/valkey-sentinel:latest

Alternatively, you may also provide with this configuration in your custom configuration file.

Configuration file

The image looks for configurations in /bitnami/valkey-sentinel/conf/. You can mount a volume at /bitnami and copy/edit the configurations in the /path/to/valkey-persistence/valkey-sentinel/conf/. The default configurations will be populated to the conf/ directory if it's empty.

Step 1: Run the Valkey Sentinel image

Run the Valkey Sentinel image, mounting a directory from your host.

docker run --name valkey-sentinel \
    -e VALKEY_MASTER_HOST=valkey \
    -v /path/to/valkey-sentinel/persistence:/bitnami \
    bitnami/valkey-sentinel:latest

Step 2: Edit the configuration

Edit the configuration on your host using your favorite editor.

vi /path/to/valkey-persistence/valkey-sentinel/conf/valkey.conf

Step 3: Restart Valkey

After changing the configuration, restart your Valkey container for changes to take effect.

docker restart valkey

Logging

The Bitnami Valkey Sentinel Docker Image sends the container logs to the stdout. To view the logs:

docker logs valkey

You can configure the containers logging driver using the --log-driver option if you wish to consume the container logs differently. In the default configuration docker uses the json-file driver.

Maintenance

Upgrade this image

Bitnami provides up-to-date versions of Valkey Sentinel, including security patches, soon after they are made upstream. We recommend that you follow these steps to upgrade your container.

Step 1: Get the updated image

docker pull bitnami/valkey-sentinel:latest

Step 2: Stop and backup the currently running container

Stop the currently running container using the command

docker stop valkey

Next, take a snapshot of the persistent volume /path/to/valkey-persistence using:

rsync -a /path/to/valkey-persistence /path/to/valkey-persistence.bkp.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H.%M.%S)

Step 3: Remove the currently running container

docker rm -v valkey

Step 4: Run the new image

Re-create your container from the new image.

docker run --name valkey bitnami/valkey-sentinel:latest

Contributing

We'd love for you to contribute to this container. You can request new features by creating an issue or submitting a pull request with your contribution.

Issues

If you encountered a problem running this container, you can file an issue. For us to provide better support, be sure to fill the issue template.

License

Copyright © 2024 Broadcom. The term "Broadcom" refers to Broadcom Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.