Aerospike

What is Aerospike?

Aerospike is a distributed, high-performance NoSQL key-value database built for low-latency reads and writes at scale, commonly used for real-time use cases like ad targeting, fraud detection, and session stores.

Start Aerospike

docker compose up -d aerospike

Stop Aerospike

docker compose stop aerospike

This stops the container without deleting its data. To remove the container (data on disk is untouched, it lives under DATA_PATH_HOST): docker compose rm -f aerospike.

Configuration

All settings live in aerospike/defaults.env and can be overridden by adding the same line to your own .env:

Variable	Default	What it does
AEROSPIKE_SERVICE_PORT	3000	Host-side port for the client service port.
AEROSPIKE_FABRIC_PORT	3001	Host-side port for inter-node cluster communication.
AEROSPIKE_HEARTBEAT_PORT	3002	Host-side port for cluster heartbeat messages.
AEROSPIKE_INFO_PORT	3003	Host-side port for the info/monitoring protocol.
AEROSPIKE_STORAGE_GB	1	Storage size (in GB) allocated to the container, passed in as STORAGE_GB.
AEROSPIKE_MEM_GB	1	Memory limit (in GB) for the container, passed in as MEM_GB.
AEROSPIKE_NAMESPACE	test	Default Aerospike namespace created on boot, passed in as NAMESPACE.

Connect from PHP

Aerospike needs its own PHP extension to talk to the server from php-fpm/workspace. That's a separate install step, see Install the Aerospike extension for the WORKSPACE_INSTALL_AEROSPIKE/PHP_FPM_INSTALL_AEROSPIKE flags and rebuild command.

Once installed, connect to the server by container name and service port:

$client = new Aerospike(["hosts" => [["addr" => "aerospike", "port" => 3000]]]);

Connect from your host machine

Inside Laradock, other containers reach it by container name: aerospike:3000. From your own machine, connect to localhost:3000 (or your custom AEROSPIKE_SERVICE_PORT) using the Aerospike CLI tools or a compatible client.

Common issues

• Client can't connect at all. Aerospike needs all four ports (service, fabric, heartbeat, info) reachable for the node to run correctly, not just the service port. Confirm none of AEROSPIKE_SERVICE_PORT/AEROSPIKE_FABRIC_PORT/AEROSPIKE_HEARTBEAT_PORT/AEROSPIKE_INFO_PORT collide with something else on your host.
• "Namespace not found" errors. Your client is targeting a namespace that doesn't match AEROSPIKE_NAMESPACE (default test). Either use that namespace or change AEROSPIKE_NAMESPACE and restart the container.
• PHP calls fail with "class Aerospike not found." The PHP extension isn't installed yet, it's not bundled by default. Follow Install the Aerospike extension and rebuild workspace/php-fpm.
• Out-of-memory or storage errors under real load. AEROSPIKE_MEM_GB/AEROSPIKE_STORAGE_GB default to 1, fine for local dev, but bump them in .env if you're testing with meaningful data volumes.

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