I encountered this exact problem with redis Version: 2:2.2.12-1build1 on Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS .

Diagnosis

The config file @harishkumarv posts is the self-documenting example for redis version 2.6. Their example has the configuration option verbatim.

Note their example value is 0. This probably works in 2.6, but is apparently unsupported in 2.4, where it is not included in the example config file for that version. By extension, we must presume it is not supported in 2.2 either. It would be nice if their "self-documenting" files would cover which version introduced certain config options.

So why am/was I using 2.2? It's the only version available on Ubuntu's package manager on the Amazon EC2 base Ubuntu AMI. I will do some research and see if I can't find a channel for the 2.4-2.8 releases of redis, but I'm not holding my breath.

Debug Tools

Checked redis version with dpkg -s redis-server

Checked ubuntu version with lsb_release -a

Checked available redis versions with apt-cache madison redis-server

Solution

Comment out or delete that line from the config file. Alternatively, use the 2.4 version of the example config file, if you're using the 2.4 version of redis. Ditto for 2.8 and 2.2.

Better Solution

I found a way to apt-get the latest redis version for ubuntu over at askubuntu; big thanks to enzotib.

You can use the following PPA: https://launchpad.net/~rwky/+archive/redis.

You can install this repo running the command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:rwky/redis

then update the packages' information

sudo apt-get update

finally install the application

sudo apt-get install redis-server

This pulls in the latest redis available at the rwky repository, which is currently a custom-built version targeting a specific Ubuntu releases (e.g. 2:2.8.1-rwky1~precise is targeting Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin). Specifying the version number, like so:

did not work for me, producing the error

Come to think of it, neither did a simpler version number redis-server=2.8.1 work... But oh well, 2.8.1 is what I want and 2.8.1 is what gets installed after this fix. I should also note that this package for 2.8.1 will copy the example config file over to the /etc/redis/redis.conf directory, so be prepared if you have a previously customized config file, especially if you update through a script. You will get a prompt like this:

And if your script or apt-get command is assuming yes (as in apt-get -y) you will overwrite your custom conf file with the example.