To compile Redis, do the following: cd src; make The compilation will produce a redis-server binary. To install Redis, use make install and all the binaries will be installed on /usr/local/bin. Alternatively: make PREFIX=/some/other/directory to have the binaries in /some/other/directory/bin. Run the server using the following command line: /path/to/redis-server This will start a Redis server with the default configuration. Otherwise if you want to provide your configuration use: /path/to/redis-server /path/to/redis.conf You can find an example redis.conf file in the root directory of this source distribution.