Amazon Kinesis Source Connector for Confluent Platform¶

The Kafka Connect Kinesis Source connector is used to pull data from Amazon Kinesis and persist the data to an Apache Kafka® topic.

Features¶

At least once delivery¶

This connector guarantees that records are delivered at least once to the Kafka topic. If the connector restarts, there may be some duplicate records in the Kafka topic.

Install the Kinesis connector¶

You can install this connector by using the confluent connect plugin install command, or by manually downloading the ZIP file.

Prerequisites¶

You must install the connector on every machine where Connect will run.
Java 8+. Note that Java 8 is deprecated in versions 7.2 and later of Confluent Platform. For more details, view Java compatibility with Confluent Platform by version.
An installation of the Confluent Hub Client. Note that this is installed by default with Confluent Enterprise.
An installation of the latest (latest) connector version.

Install the connector using the Confluent CLI¶

To install the latest connector version, navigate to your Confluent Platform installation directory and run the following command:

confluent connect plugin install confluentinc/kafka-connect-kinesis:latest

You can install a specific version by replacing latest with a version number as shown in the following example:

confluent connect plugin install confluentinc/kafka-connect-kinesis:1.3.15

Install the connector manually¶

Download and extract the ZIP file for your connector and then follow the manual connector installation instructions.

License¶

You can use this connector for a 30-day trial period without a license key.

After 30 days, you must purchase a connector subscription which includes Confluent enterprise license keys to subscribers, along with enterprise-level support for Confluent Platform and your connectors. If you are a subscriber, you can contact Confluent Support at support@confluent.io for more information.

For license properties, see Confluent Platform license. For information about the license topic, see License topic configuration.

Configuration properties¶

For a complete list of configuration properties for this connector, see Amazon Kinesis Source Connector Configuration Properties.

For an example of how to get Kafka Connect connected to Confluent Cloud, see Connect Self-Managed Kafka Connect to Confluent Cloud.

Usage notes¶

The default credentials provider is DefaultAWSCredentialsProviderChain. For more information, see the AWS documentation.

Examples¶

Streaming ETL Demo¶

To evaluate the Kafka Connect Kinesis source connector, AWS S3 sink connector, Azure Blob sink connector, and GCP GCS sink connector in an end-to-end streaming deployment, refer to the Cloud ETL demo on GitHub. This demo also allows you to evaluate the real-time data processing capabilities of ksqlDB.

Property-based example¶

This configuration is used typically along with standalone workers.

name=KinesisSourceConnector1
connector.class=io.confluent.connect.kinesis.KinesisSourceConnector
tasks.max=1
aws.access.key.id=< Optional Configuration >
aws.secret.key.id=< Optional Configuration >
kafka.topic=< Required Configuration >
kinesis.stream=< Required Configuration >
kinesis.region=< Optional Configuration - defaults to US_EAST_1 >
confluent.topic.bootstrap.servers=localhost:9092
confluent.topic.replication.factor=1

REST-based example¶

This configuration is used typically along with distributed workers. Write the following JSON to connector.json, configure all of the required values, and use the command below to post the configuration to one the distributed connect worker(s). For more information, see Kafka Connect REST API

Connect distributed REST-based example:

  {
    "config" : {
      "name" : "KinesisSourceConnector1",
      "connector.class" : "io.confluent.connect.kinesis.KinesisSourceConnector",
      "tasks.max" : "1",
      "aws.access.key.id" : "< Optional Configuration >",
      "aws.secret.key.id" : "< Optional Configuration >",
      "kafka.topic" : "< Required Configuration >",
      "kinesis.stream" : "< Required Configuration >"
    }
  }

Use curl to post the configuration to one of the Kafka Connect Workers. Change http://localhost:8083/ the endpoint of one of your Kafka Connect worker(s).

Create a new connector:

curl -s -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' --data @connector.json http://localhost:8083/connectors

Update an existing connector:

curl -s -X PUT -H 'Content-Type: application/json' --data @connector.json http://localhost:8083/connectors/KinesisSourceConnector1/config

Quick start¶

The Kinesis connector is used to import data from Kinesis streams, and write them into a Kafka topic. Before you begin, create a Kinesis stream and have a user profile with read access to it.

Preliminary setup¶

After you have installed the latest connector version, complete the following steps:

Use the Confluent CLI to restart Connect (adding a new connector plugin requires restarting Connect).

confluent local services connect stop && confluent local services connect start

Your output should resemble:

Using CONFLUENT_CURRENT: /Users/username/Sandbox/confluent-snapshots/var/confluent.NuZHxXfq
Starting Zookeeper
Zookeeper is [UP]
Starting Kafka
Kafka is [UP]
Starting Schema Registry
Schema Registry is [UP]
Starting Kafka REST
Kafka REST is [UP]
Starting Connect
Connect is [UP]

Check if the Kinesis plugin has been installed correctly and picked up by the plugin loader:

curl -sS localhost:8083/connector-plugins | jq .[].class | grep kinesis
"io.confluent.connect.kinesis.KinesisSourceConnector"

Kinesis setup¶

You can use the AWS Management Console to set up your Kinesis stream, or by completing the following steps:

Sign up for an AWS account.
Set up your AWS credentials. Ensure you set the following permissions in your AWS Kinesis policy:
```
"Action": [ "kinesis:DescribeStream", "kinesis:GetShardIterator", "kinesis:GetRecords" ]
```

Create a Kinesis stream.

aws kinesis create-stream --stream-name my_kinesis_stream --shard-count 1

Insert records into your stream.
```
aws kinesis put-record --stream-name my_kinesis_stream --partition-key 123 --data test-message-1
```
The previous example shows that a record containing partition key 123 and text test-message-1 is inserted into a stream, my_kinesis_stream.

Source connector configuration¶

Start the services using the Confluent CLI:
```
confluent local services start
```
Create a configuration file named kinesis-source-config.json with the following contents.
```
{
"name": "kinesis-source",
"config": {
    "connector.class": "io.confluent.connect.kinesis.KinesisSourceConnector",
    "tasks.max": "1",
    "kafka.topic": "kinesis_topic",
    "kinesis.region": "US_WEST_1",
    "kinesis.stream": "my_kinesis_stream",
    "confluent.license": "",
    "name": "kinesis-source",
    "confluent.topic.bootstrap.servers": "localhost:9092",
    "confluent.topic.replication.factor": "1"
}
}
```
The important configuration parameters used here are:
- kinesis.stream.name: The Kinesis Stream to subscribe to.
- kafka.topic: The Kafka topic in which the messages received from Kinesis are produced.
- tasks.max: The maximum number of tasks that should be created for this connector. Each Kinesis shard is allocated to a single task. If the number of shards specified exceeds the number of tasks, the connector throws an exception and fails.
- kinesis.region: The region where the stream exists. Defaults to US_EAST_1 if not specified.
- You may pass your AWS credentials to the Kinesis connector through your source connector configuration. To pass AWS credentials in the source configuration set the aws.access.key.id and the aws.secret.key.id parameters.
```
"aws.acess.key.id":<your-access-key>
"aws.secret.key.id":<your-secret-key>
```

Run the following command to start the Kinesis Source connector.

confluent local services connect connector load source-kinesis --config source-kinesis-config.json

Run the following command to check that the connector started successfully by viewing the Connect worker’s log:
```
confluent local services connect log
```
Start a Kafka Consumer in a separate terminal session to view the data exported by the connector into the Kafka topic
```
bin/kafka-console-consumer.sh --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 --topic kinesis_topic --from-beginning
```
Stop the Confluent services using the following command:
```
confluent local stop
```

Remove unused resources¶

Delete your stream and clean up resources to avoid incurring any unintended charges.

aws kinesis delete-stream --stream-name my_kinesis_stream

AWS credentials¶

By default, the Kinesis connector looks for Kinesis credentials in the following locations and in the following order:

The AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY environment variables accessible to the Connect worker processes where the connector will be deployed. These variables are recognized by the AWS CLI and all AWS SDKs (except for the AWS SDK for .NET). You use export to set these variables.
```
export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=<your_access_key_id>
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=<your_secret_access_key>
```
The AWS_ACCESS_KEY and AWS_SECRET_KEY can be used instead, but are not recognized by the AWS CLI.
The aws.accessKeyId and aws.secretKey Java system properties on the Connect worker processes where the connector will be deployed. However, these variables are only recognized by the AWS SDK for Java and are not recommended.
The ~/.aws/credentials file located in the home directory of the operating system user that runs the Connect worker processes. These credentials are recognized by most AWS SDKs and the AWS CLI. Use the following AWS CLI command to create the credentials file:
```
aws configure
```

You can also manually create the credentials file using a text editor. The file should contain lines in the following format:

[default]
aws_access_key_id = <your_access_key_id>
aws_secret_access_key = <your_secret_access_key>

Note that when creating the credentials file, you must ensure the following

The user creating the credentials file is the same user that runs the Connect worker processes.
The credentials file is in this user’s home directory.

Without satisfying the previous conditions, the connector will not be able to find the credentials. For more details, see AWS Credentials File Format.

Choose one of the previous conditions to define the AWS credentials that the Kinesis connector will use, verify the credentials implementation is set correctly, and then restart all of the Connect worker processes.

Confluent recommends using either environment variables or a credentials file because they are the most straightforward, and can be checked using the AWS CLI tool before running the connector.

All Kinesis connectors run in a single Connect worker cluster and use the same credentials. This is sufficient for many use cases. If you want more control, refer to the following section to learn more about controlling and customizing how the kinesis connector gets AWS credentials.

Important

If you configure one of the AWS key and AWS secret key implementations (as previously mentioned), credentials cannot also be supplied through the following Credentials providers or by using the Trusted Account Credentials implementation. Attempting to provide credentials using multiple implementations will cause authentication failure.

Credentials providers¶

A credentials provider is a Java class that implements the com.amazon.auth.AWSCredentialsProvider interface in the AWS Java library and returns AWS credentials from the environment. By default, the Kinesis connector configuration property kinesis.credentials.provider.class uses the com.amazon.auth.DefaultAWSCredentialsProviderChain class. This class and interface implementation chains together five other credential provider classes.

The com.amazonaws.auth.DefaultAWSCredentialsProviderChain implementation looks for credentials in the following order:

Environment variables using the com.amazonaws.auth.EnvironmentVariableCredentialsProvider class implementation. This implementation uses environment variables AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY. Environment variables AWS_ACCESS_KEY and AWS_SECRET_KEY are also supported by this implementation; however, these two variables are only recognized by the AWS SDK for Java and are not recommended.
Java system properties using the com.amazonaws.auth.SystemPropertiesCredentialsProvider class implementation. This implementation uses Java system properties aws.accessKeyId and aws.secretKey.
Credentials file using the com.amazonaws.auth.profile.ProfileCredentialsProvider class implementation. This implementation uses a credentials file located in the path ~/.aws/credentials. This credentials provider can be used by most AWS SDKs and the AWS CLI. Use the following AWS CLI command to create the credentials file:
```
aws configure
```

You can also manually create the credentials file using a text editor. The file should contain lines in the following format:

[default]
aws_access_key_id = <your_access_key_id>
aws_secret_access_key = <your_secret_access_key>

Note that when creating the credentials file, you must ensure the following

The user creating the credentials file is the same user that runs the Connect worker processes.
The credentials file is in this user’s home directory.

Without satisfying the previous conditions, the connector will not be able to find the credentials. For more details, see the AWS Credentials File Format.

Trusted account credentials¶

This connector can assume a role and use credentials from a separate trusted account. This is a default feature provided with recent versions of this connector that include an updated version of the AWS SDK.

Important

You cannot use assumed role credentials to access AWS through a proxy server without first passing environment variables or system properties. This is due to an AWS SDK limitation.

After you create the trust relationship, an IAM user or an application from the trusted account can use the AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS) AssumeRole API operation. This operation provides temporary security credentials that enable access to AWS resources for the connector. For details, see Creating a Role to Delegate Permissions to an IAM User.

Example:

Profile in ~/.aws/credentials:

[default]
role_arn=arn:aws:iam::037803949979:role/kinesis_cross_account_role
source_profile=staging
role_session_name = OPTIONAL_SESSION_NAME

[staging]
aws_access_key_id = <STAGING KEY>
aws_secret_access_key = <STAGING SECRET>

To allow the connector to assume a role with the right permissions, set the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) for this role. Additionally, you must choose between source_profile or credential_source as the way to get credentials that have permission to assume the role, in the environment where the connector is running.

Note

When setting up trusted account credentials, be aware that the approach of loading profiles from both ~/.aws/credentials and ~/.aws/config does not work when configuring this connector. Assumed role settings and credentials must be placed in the ~/.aws/credentials file.

Other implementations¶

You can use a different credentials provider. To do this, set the kinesis.credentials.provider.class property to the name of any class that implements the com.amazon.auth.AWSCredentialsProvider interface.

Note that if you’re using a different credentials provider, do not include the aws.access.key.id and aws.secret.key.id in the connector configuration file. If these parameters are included, they will override the custom credentials provider class.

Complete the following steps to use a different credentials provider:

Find or create a Java credentials provider class that implements the com.amazon.auth.AWSCredentialsProvider interface.
Put the class file in a JAR file.
Place the JAR file in the share/java/kafka-connect-kinesis directory on all Connect workers.
Restart the Connect workers.
Change the Kinesis connector property file to use your custom credentials. Add the provider class entry kinesis.credentials.provider.class=<className> in the Kinesis connector properties file.

You must use the fully qualified class name in the <className> entry.