Module 1: Deploy the Confluent Platform Demo Environment

cp-demo is a Docker environment and has all services running on one host. It is meant exclusively to easily demo Confluent Platform. Note that in production, you should not deploy all Confluent Platform services on a single host as shown in cp-demo.

Also, in production, Confluent Control Center should be deployed with a valid license in reduced infrastructure mode in conjunction with Confluent Health+ for monitoring.

If you prefer non-Docker examples, go to confluentinc/examples GitHub repository.

After you complete the guided tutorial that follows, you can apply the concepts you learn to build your own event streaming pipeline in Confluent Cloud, a fully managed, cloud-native event streaming platform powered by Kafka. When you sign up for Confluent Cloud, use the promo code CPDEMO50 to receive an additional $50 free usage (details).

Prerequisites

This example has been validated with:

• Docker engine version 20.10.12
• Docker Compose version 2.4.1
• Java version 11.0.8
• Ubuntu 18.04
• OpenSSL 1.1.1
• git
• curl
• jq

Setup

You can run this demo locally with Docker or in a cloud IDE with Gitpod.

Docker

This demo has been validated with Docker as described in Prerequisites. If you are using Docker:

1. In Docker’s advanced settings, increase the memory dedicated to Docker to at least 8 GB (default is 2 GB) and ensure Docker is allocated at least 2 CPU cores.

2. Clone the confluentinc/cp-demo GitHub repository:

   git clone https://github.com/confluentinc/cp-demo
   

3. Navigate to the cp-demo directory and switch to the Confluent Platform release branch:

   cd cp-demo
   git checkout 7.7.1-post
   

Gitpod

This demo is enabled to run with Gitpod, but support for the Gitpod workflow is best effort from the community. If you are using Gitpod, the demo will automatically start after the Gitpod workspace is ready. VIZ=false is used to save system resources.

Login into Confluent Control Center (port 9021) by clicking on Open Browser option in the pop-up:

or by selecting Remote Explorer on the left sidebar and then clicking on the Open Browser option corresponding to the port you want to connect to:

Start

Within the cp-demo directory, there is a single script that runs the cp-demo workflow end-to-end. It generates the keys and certificates, brings up the Docker containers, and configures and validates the environment. You can run it with optional settings:

• CLEAN: controls whether certificates are regenerated
• C3_KSQLDB_HTTPS: controls whether Confluent Control Center and ksqlDB server use HTTP or HTTPS (default: false for HTTP). This option is not supported with Gitpod.
• VIZ: enables Elasticsearch and Kibana (default: true)

1. To run cp-demo the first time with defaults, run the following command. The very first run downloads all the required Docker images (~15 minutes) and sets up the environment (~5 minutes).

   ./scripts/start.sh
   

2. On subsequent runs, if you have not deleted the generated certificates and the locally built Connect image, they will be reused. To force them to be rebuilt, you can set CLEAN=true.

   CLEAN=true ./scripts/start.sh
   

3. cp-demo supports access to the Confluent Control Center GUI via either http:// (the default) or secure https://, the latter employing a self-signed CA and certificates generated during deployment. In order to run ksqlDB queries from Confluent Control Center later in this tutorial, both ksqlDB and Confluent Control Center must be running in either http or https mode. To run cp-demo in https mode, set C3_KSQLDB_HTTPS=true when starting cp-demo:

   C3_KSQLDB_HTTPS=true ./scripts/start.sh
   

4. Elasticsearch and Kibana increase localhost memory requirements for cp-demo. For users who want to run cp-demo with a smaller memory footprint, opt-out of these components by setting VIZ=false when starting cp-demo.

   VIZ=false ./scripts/start.sh
   

5. After the start script completes, run through the pre-flight checks below and follow the guided tutorial through this on-premises deployment.

Pre-flight checks

Before going through the tutorial, check that the environment has started correctly. If any of these pre-flight checks fails, consult the Troubleshooting the scripted demo section.

1. Verify the status of the Docker containers show Up state.

   docker-compose ps
   

   Your output should resemble:

              Name                          Command                  State                                           Ports
   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   connect                       bash -c sleep 10 && cp /us ...   Up             0.0.0.0:8083->8083/tcp, 9092/tcp
   control-center                /etc/confluent/docker/run        Up (healthy)   0.0.0.0:9021->9021/tcp, 0.0.0.0:9022->9022/tcp
   elasticsearch                 /bin/bash bin/es-docker          Up             0.0.0.0:9200->9200/tcp, 0.0.0.0:9300->9300/tcp
   kafka1                        bash -c if [ ! -f /etc/kaf ...   Up (healthy)   0.0.0.0:10091->10091/tcp, 0.0.0.0:11091->11091/tcp, 0.0.0.0:12091->12091/tcp,
                                                                                 0.0.0.0:8091->8091/tcp, 0.0.0.0:9091->9091/tcp, 9092/tcp
   kafka2                        bash -c if [ ! -f /etc/kaf ...   Up (healthy)   0.0.0.0:10092->10092/tcp, 0.0.0.0:11092->11092/tcp, 0.0.0.0:12092->12092/tcp,
                                                                                 0.0.0.0:8092->8092/tcp, 0.0.0.0:9092->9092/tcp
   kibana                        /bin/sh -c /usr/local/bin/ ...   Up             0.0.0.0:5601->5601/tcp
   ksqldb-cli                    /bin/sh                          Up
   ksqldb-server                 /etc/confluent/docker/run        Up (healthy)   0.0.0.0:8088->8088/tcp
   openldap                      /container/tool/run --copy ...   Up             0.0.0.0:389->389/tcp, 636/tcp
   restproxy                     /etc/confluent/docker/run        Up             8082/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8086->8086/tcp
   schemaregistry                /etc/confluent/docker/run        Up             8081/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8085->8085/tcp
   streams-demo                  /app/start.sh                    Up             9092/tcp
   tools                         /bin/bash                        Up
   zookeeper                     /etc/confluent/docker/run        Up (healthy)   0.0.0.0:2181->2181/tcp, 2888/tcp, 3888/tcp
   

2. Jump to the end of the entire cp-demo pipeline and view the Kibana dashboard at http://localhost:5601/app/dashboards#/view/Overview . This is a cool view and validates that the cp-demo start script completed successfully.

   

3. View the full Confluent Platform configuration in the docker-compose.yml file.

4. View the Kafka Streams application configuration in the client configuration file, set with security parameters to the Kafka cluster and Schema Registry.

Guided tutorial

Log into Confluent Control Center

1. If you ran cp-demo with C3_KSQLDB_HTTPS=false (which is the default), log into the Confluent Control Center GUI from a web browser at the following URL:

   http://localhost:9021
   

2. If you ran cp-demo with C3_KSQLDB_HTTPS=true (not supported with Gitpod), log into the Confluent Control Center GUI from a web browser at the following URL:

   https://localhost:9022
   

   The browser will detect a self-signed, untrusted certificate and certificate authority, and issue a privacy warning as shown below. To proceed, accept this certificate using your browser’s process for this, which will then last for the duration of that browser session.

   • Chrome: click on Advanced and when the window expands, click on Proceed to localhost (unsafe).

     

   • Safari: open a new private browsing window (Shift + ⌘ + N), click on Show Details and when the window expands, click on visit this website.

     

3. At the login screen, log into Confluent Control Center as superUser and password superUser, which has super user access to the cluster. You may also log in as other users to learn how each user’s view changes depending on their permissions.

   

Brokers

1. Select the cluster named “Kafka Raleigh”.

   

2. Click on “Brokers”.

3. View the status of the brokers in the cluster:

   

4. Click through on Production or Consumption to view: Production and Consumption metrics, Broker uptime, Partitions: online, under replicated, total replicas, out of sync replicas, Disk utilization, System: network pool usage, request pool usage.

   

Topics

1. Confluent Control Center can manage topics in a Kafka cluster. Click on “Topics”.

2. Scroll down and click on the topic wikipedia.parsed.

   

3. View an overview of this topic:

   • Throughput
   • Partition replication status
   

4. View which brokers are leaders for which partitions and where all partitions reside.

   

5. Inspect messages for this topic, in real-time.

   

6. View the schema for this topic. For wikipedia.parsed, the topic value is using a Schema registered with Schema Registry (the topic key is just a string).

   

7. View configuration settings for this topic.

   

8. Return to “All Topics”, click on wikipedia.parsed.count-by-domain to view the output topic from the Kafka Streams application.

   

9. Return to the All topics view and click the + Add a topic button on the top right to create a new topic in your Kafka cluster. You can also view and edit settings of Kafka topics in the cluster. Read more on Confluent Control Center topic management.

   

Kafka Connect

This example runs two connectors:

• SSE source connector
• Elasticsearch sink connector

They are running on a Connect worker that is configured with Confluent Platform security features. The Connect worker’s embedded producer is configured to be idempotent, exactly-once in order semantics per partition (in the event of an error that causes a producer retry, the same message—which is still sent by the producer multiple times—will only be written to the Kafka log on the broker once).

1. The Kafka Connect Docker container is running a custom image which has a specific set of connectors and transformations needed by cp-demo. See this Dockerfile for more details.

2. Confluent Control Center uses the Kafka Connect API to manage multiple connect clusters. Click on “Connect”.

3. Select connect1, the name of the cluster of Connect workers.

   

4. Verify the connectors running in this example:

   • source connector wikipedia-sse: view the example’s SSE source connector configuration file.
   • sink connector elasticsearch-ksqldb consuming from the Kafka topic WIKIPEDIABOT: view the example’s Elasticsearch sink connector configuration file.
   

5. Click any connector name to view or modify any details of the connector configuration and custom transforms.

ksqlDB

In this example, ksqlDB is authenticated and authorized to connect to the secured Kafka cluster, and it is already running queries as defined in the ksqlDB command file. Its embedded producer is configured to be idempotent, exactly-once in order semantics per partition (in the event of an error that causes a producer retry, the same message—which is still sent by the producer multiple times—will only be written to the Kafka log on the broker once).

1. In the navigation bar, click ksqlDB.

2. From the list of ksqlDB applications, select wikipedia.

   

3. View the ksqlDB Flow to see the streams and tables created in the example, and how they relate to one another.

   

4. Use Confluent Control Center to interact with ksqlDB, or run ksqlDB CLI to get to the ksqlDB CLI prompt.

   docker-compose exec ksqldb-cli bash -c 'ksql -u ksqlDBUser -p ksqlDBUser http://ksqldb-server:8088'
   

5. View the existing ksqlDB streams. (If you are using the ksqlDB CLI, at the ksql> prompt type SHOW STREAMS;)

   

6. Click on WIKIPEDIA to describe the schema (fields or columns) of an existing ksqlDB stream. (If you are using the ksqlDB CLI, at the ksql> prompt type DESCRIBE WIKIPEDIA;)

   

7. View the existing ksqlDB tables. (If you are using the ksqlDB CLI, at the ksql> prompt type SHOW TABLES;). One table is called WIKIPEDIA_COUNT_GT_1, which counts occurrences within a tumbling window.

   

8. View the existing ksqlDB queries, which are continuously running. (If you are using the ksqlDB CLI, at the ksql> prompt type SHOW QUERIES;).

   

9. View messages from different ksqlDB streams and tables. Click on your stream of choice and then click Query stream to open the Query Editor. The editor shows a pre-populated query, like select * from WIKIPEDIA EMIT CHANGES;, and it shows results for newly arriving data.

   

10. Click ksqlDB Editor and run the SHOW PROPERTIES; statement. You can see the configured ksqlDB server properties and check these values with the docker-compose.yml file.

    

11. The ksqlDB processing log captures per-record errors during processing to help developers debug their ksqlDB queries. In this example, the processing log uses mutual TLS (mTLS) authentication, as configured in the custom log4j properties file, to write entries into a Kafka topic. To see it in action, in the ksqlDB editor run the following “bad” query for 20 seconds:

    SELECT 1/0 FROM wikipedia EMIT CHANGES;
    

    No records should be returned from this query. ksqlDB writes errors into the processing log for each record. View the processing log topic ksql-clusterksql_processing_log with topic inspection (jump to offset 0/partition 0) or the corresponding ksqlDB stream KSQL_PROCESSING_LOG with the ksqlDB editor (set auto.offset.reset=earliest).

    SELECT * FROM KSQL_PROCESSING_LOG EMIT CHANGES;
    

Consumers

1. Confluent Control Center enables you to monitor consumer lag and throughput performance. Consumer lag is the topic’s high water mark (latest offset for the topic that has been written) minus the current consumer offset (latest offset read for that topic by that consumer group). Keep in mind the topic’s write rate and consumer group’s read rate when you consider the significance the consumer lag’s size. Click on “Consumers”.

2. Consumer lag is available on a per-consumer basis, including the embedded Connect consumers for sink connectors (e.g., connect-elasticsearch-ksqldb), ksqlDB queries (e.g., consumer groups whose names start with _confluent-ksql-ksql-clusterquery_), console consumers (e.g., WIKIPEDIANOBOT-consumer), etc. Consumer lag is also available on a per-topic basis.

   

3. View consumer lag for the persistent ksqlDB “Create Stream As Select” query CSAS_WIKIPEDIABOT, which is displayed as _confluent-ksql-ksql-clusterquery_CSAS_WIKIPEDIABOT_5 in the consumer group list.

   

4. View consumer lag for the Kafka Streams application under the consumer group id wikipedia-activity-monitor. This application is run by the cnfldemos/cp-demo-kstreams Docker container (application source code). The Kafka Streams application is configured to connect to the Kafka cluster with the following client configuration file.

   

5. Consumption metrics are available on a per-consumer basis. These consumption charts are only populated if Confluent Monitoring Interceptors are configured, as they are in this example. You can view % messages consumed and end-to-end latency. View consumption metrics for the persistent ksqlDB “Create Stream As Select” query CSAS_WIKIPEDIABOT, which is displayed as _confluent-ksql-ksql-clusterquery_CSAS_WIKIPEDIABOT_5 in the consumer group list.

   

6. Confluent Control Center shows which consumers in a consumer group are consuming from which partitions and on which brokers those partitions reside. Confluent Control Center updates as consumer rebalances occur in a consumer group. Start consuming from topic wikipedia.parsed with a new consumer group app with one consumer consumer_app_1. It runs in the background.

   ./scripts/app/start_consumer_app.sh 1
   

7. Let this consumer group run for 2 minutes until Confluent Control Center shows the consumer group app with steady consumption. This consumer group app has a single consumer consumer_app_1 consuming all of the partitions in the topic wikipedia.parsed.

   

8. Add a second consumer consumer_app_2 to the existing consumer group app.

   ./scripts/app/start_consumer_app.sh 2
   

9. Let this consumer group run for 2 minutes until Confluent Control Center shows the consumer group app with steady consumption. Notice that the consumers consumer_app_1 and consumer_app_2 now share consumption of the partitions in the topic wikipedia.parsed.

   

10. From the Brokers -> Consumption view, click on a point in the Request latency line graph to view a breakdown of latencies through the entire request lifecycle.

    

Security

Overview

All components and clients in cp-demo make full use of Confluent Platform’s extensive security features.

• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) for authorization. Give principals access to resources using role-bindings.

  Note

  RBAC is powered by the Metadata Service (MDS) which uses Confluent Server Authorizer to connect to an OpenLDAP directory service. This enables group-based authorization for scalable access management.

• SSL for encryption and mTLS for authentication. The example automatically generates SSL certificates and creates keystores, truststores, and secures them with a password.

• ZooKeeper is configured with mTLS and SASL/DIGEST-MD5 authentication.

• HTTPS for Control Center.

• HTTPS for Schema Registry.

• HTTPS for Connect.

You can see each component’s security configuration in the example’s docker-compose.yml file.

Note

This example showcases a secure Confluent Platform for educational purposes and is not meant to be complete best practices. There are certain differences between what is shown in the example and what you should do in production:

• Authorize users only for operations that they need, instead of making all of them super users
• If the PLAINTEXT security protocol is used, these ANONYMOUS usernames should not be configured as super users
• Consider not even opening the PLAINTEXT port if SSL or SASL_SSL are configured

ZooKeeper has two listener ports:

Name	Protocol	In this example, used for …	ZooKeeper
N/A	SASL/DIGEST-MD5	Validating trial license for REST Proxy and Schema Registry. (no TLS support)	2181
N/A	mTLS	Broker communication (kafka1, kafka2)	2182

Each broker has five listener ports:

Name	Protocol	In this example, used for …	kafka1	kafka2
N/A	MDS	Authorization via RBAC	8091	8092
INTERNAL	SASL_PLAINTEXT	CP Kafka clients (e.g. Confluent Metrics Reporter), SASL_PLAINTEXT	9091	9092
TOKEN	SASL_SSL	Confluent Platform service (e.g. Schema Registry) when they need to use impersonation	10091	10092
SSL	SSL	End clients, (e.g. stream-demo), with SSL no SASL	11091	11092
CLEAR	PLAINTEXT	No security, available as a backdoor; for demo and learning only	12091	12092

End clients (non-CP clients):

• Authenticate using mTLS via the broker SSL listener.
• If they are also using Schema Registry, authenticate to Schema Registry via LDAP.
• If they are also using Confluent Monitoring interceptors, authenticate using mTLS via the broker SSL listener.
• Should never use the TOKEN listener which is meant only for internal communication between Confluent components.

Note

If you wish to authenticate clients with username and password via LDAP, you would create a new SASL PLAIN client listener with Confluent’s LdapAuthenticateCallbackHandler. This is omitted from the demo for simplicity.

• See client configuration used in the example by the streams-demo container running the Kafka Streams application wikipedia-activity-monitor.

Broker listeners

1. Verify the ports on which the Kafka brokers are listening with the following command, and they should match the table shown below:

   docker-compose logs kafka1 | grep "Registered broker 1"
   docker-compose logs kafka2 | grep "Registered broker 2"
   

2. For example only: Communicate with brokers via the PLAINTEXT port, client security configurations are not required

   # CLEAR/PLAINTEXT port
   docker-compose exec kafka1 kafka-consumer-groups \
      --list \
      --bootstrap-server kafka1:12091
   

3. End clients: Communicate with brokers via the SSL port, and SSL parameters configured via the --command-config argument for command line tools or --consumer.config for kafka-console-consumer.

   # SSL/SSL port
   docker-compose exec kafka1 kafka-consumer-groups \
      --list \
      --bootstrap-server kafka1:11091 \
      --command-config /etc/kafka/secrets/client_without_interceptors_ssl.config
   

4. If a client tries to communicate with brokers via the SSL port but does not specify the SSL parameters, it fails

   # SSL/SSL port
   docker-compose exec kafka1 kafka-consumer-groups \
      --list \
      --bootstrap-server kafka1:11091
   

   Your output should resemble:

   ERROR Uncaught exception in thread 'kafka-admin-client-thread | adminclient-1': (org.apache.kafka.common.utils.KafkaThread)
   java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
   ...
   

5. Communicate with brokers via the SASL_PLAINTEXT port, and SASL_PLAINTEXT parameters configured via the --command-config argument for command line tools or --consumer.config for kafka-console-consumer.

   # INTERNAL/SASL_PLAIN port
   docker-compose exec kafka1 kafka-consumer-groups \
      --list \
      --bootstrap-server kafka1:9091 \
      --command-config /etc/kafka/secrets/client_sasl_plain.config
   

Authorization with RBAC

1. Verify which users are configured to be super users.

   docker-compose logs kafka1 | grep "super.users ="
   

   Your output should resemble the following. Notice this authorizes each service name which authenticates as itself, as well as the unauthenticated PLAINTEXT which authenticates as ANONYMOUS (for demo purposes only):

   kafka1            |    super.users = User:admin;User:mds;User:superUser;User:ANONYMOUS
   

2. From the Confluent Control Center UI, in the Administration menu, click the Manage role assignments option. Click on Assignments and then the Kafka cluster ID. From the Topic list, verify that the LDAP user appSA is allowed to access a few topics, including any topic whose name starts with wikipedia. This role assignment was done during cp-demo startup in the create-role-bindings.sh script.

   

3. Verify that LDAP user appSA (which is not a super user) can consume messages from topic wikipedia.parsed. Notice that it is configured to authenticate to brokers with mTLS and authenticate to Schema Registry with LDAP.

   docker-compose exec connect kafka-avro-console-consumer \
     --bootstrap-server kafka1:11091,kafka2:11092 \
     --consumer-property security.protocol=SSL \
     --consumer-property ssl.truststore.location=/etc/kafka/secrets/kafka.appSA.truststore.jks \
     --consumer-property ssl.truststore.password=confluent \
     --consumer-property ssl.keystore.location=/etc/kafka/secrets/kafka.appSA.keystore.jks \
     --consumer-property ssl.keystore.password=confluent \
     --consumer-property ssl.key.password=confluent \
     --property schema.registry.url=https://schemaregistry:8085 \
     --property schema.registry.ssl.truststore.location=/etc/kafka/secrets/kafka.appSA.truststore.jks \
     --property schema.registry.ssl.truststore.password=confluent \
     --property basic.auth.credentials.source=USER_INFO \
     --property basic.auth.user.info=appSA:appSA \
     --group wikipedia.test \
     --topic wikipedia.parsed \
     --max-messages 5
   

4. Verify that LDAP user badapp cannot consume messages from topic wikipedia.parsed.

   docker-compose exec connect kafka-avro-console-consumer \
     --bootstrap-server kafka1:11091,kafka2:11092 \
     --consumer-property security.protocol=SSL \
     --consumer-property ssl.truststore.location=/etc/kafka/secrets/kafka.badapp.truststore.jks \
     --consumer-property ssl.truststore.password=confluent \
     --consumer-property ssl.keystore.location=/etc/kafka/secrets/kafka.badapp.keystore.jks \
     --consumer-property ssl.keystore.password=confluent \
     --consumer-property ssl.key.password=confluent \
     --property schema.registry.url=https://schemaregistry:8085 \
     --property schema.registry.ssl.truststore.location=/etc/kafka/secrets/kafka.badapp.truststore.jks \
     --property schema.registry.ssl.truststore.password=confluent \
     --property basic.auth.credentials.source=USER_INFO \
     --property basic.auth.user.info=badapp:badapp \
     --group wikipedia.test \
     --topic wikipedia.parsed \
     --max-messages 5
   

   Your output should resemble:

   ERROR [Consumer clientId=consumer-wikipedia.test-1, groupId=wikipedia.test] Topic authorization failed for topics [wikipedia.parsed]
   org.apache.kafka.common.errors.TopicAuthorizationException: Not authorized to access topics: [wikipedia.parsed]
   

5. Create role bindings to permit badapp client to consume from topic wikipedia.parsed and its related subject in Schema Registry.

   Get the Kafka cluster ID:

   KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID=$(curl -s https://localhost:8091/v1/metadata/id --tlsv1.2 --cacert scripts/security/snakeoil-ca-1.crt | jq -r ".id")
   

   Create the role bindings:

   # Create the role binding for the topic ``wikipedia.parsed``
   docker-compose exec tools bash -c "confluent iam rbac role-binding create \
       --principal User:badapp \
       --role ResourceOwner \
       --resource Topic:wikipedia.parsed \
       --kafka-cluster-id $KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID"
   
   # Create the role binding for the group ``wikipedia.test``
   docker-compose exec tools bash -c "confluent iam rbac role-binding create \
       --principal User:badapp \
       --role ResourceOwner \
       --resource Group:wikipedia.test \
       --kafka-cluster-id $KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID"
   
   # Create the role binding for the subject ``wikipedia.parsed-value``, i.e., the topic-value (versus the topic-key)
   docker-compose exec tools bash -c "confluent iam rbac role-binding create \
       --principal User:badapp \
       --role ResourceOwner \
       --resource Subject:wikipedia.parsed-value \
       --kafka-cluster-id $KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID \
       --schema-registry-cluster-id schema-registry"
   

6. Verify that LDAP user badapp now can consume messages from topic wikipedia.parsed.

   docker-compose exec connect kafka-avro-console-consumer \
     --bootstrap-server kafka1:11091,kafka2:11092 \
     --consumer-property security.protocol=SSL \
     --consumer-property ssl.truststore.location=/etc/kafka/secrets/kafka.badapp.truststore.jks \
     --consumer-property ssl.truststore.password=confluent \
     --consumer-property ssl.keystore.location=/etc/kafka/secrets/kafka.badapp.keystore.jks \
     --consumer-property ssl.keystore.password=confluent \
     --consumer-property ssl.key.password=confluent \
     --property schema.registry.url=https://schemaregistry:8085 \
     --property schema.registry.ssl.truststore.location=/etc/kafka/secrets/kafka.badapp.truststore.jks \
     --property schema.registry.ssl.truststore.password=confluent \
     --property basic.auth.credentials.source=USER_INFO \
     --property basic.auth.user.info=badapp:badapp \
     --group wikipedia.test \
     --topic wikipedia.parsed \
     --max-messages 5
   

7. View all the role bindings that were configured for RBAC in this cluster.

   ./scripts/validate/validate_bindings.sh
   

8. Because ZooKeeper is configured for SASL/DIGEST-MD5, any commands that communicate with ZooKeeper need properties set for ZooKeeper authentication. This authentication configuration is provided by the KAFKA_OPTS setting on the brokers. For example, notice that the consumer throttle script runs on the Docker container kafka1 which has the appropriate KAFKA_OPTS setting. The command would otherwise fail if run on any other container aside from kafka1 or kafka2.

9. Next step: Learn more about security with the Security Tutorial.

Data governance with Schema Registry

All the applications and connectors used in this example are configured to automatically read and write Avro-formatted data, leveraging the Confluent Schema Registry.

The security in place between Schema Registry and the end clients, e.g. appSA, is as follows:

• Encryption: TLS, e.g. client has schema.registry.ssl.truststore.* configurations
• Authentication: bearer token authentication from HTTP basic auth headers, e.g. client has basic.auth.user.info and basic.auth.credentials.source configurations
• Authorization: Schema Registry uses the bearer token with RBAC to authorize the client

1. View the Schema Registry subjects for topics that have registered schemas for their keys and/or values. Notice the curl arguments include (a) TLS information required to interact with Schema Registry which is listening for HTTPS on port 8085, and (b) authentication credentials required for RBAC (using superUser:superUser to see all of them).

   docker exec schemaregistry curl -s -X GET \
      --tlsv1.2 \
      --cacert /etc/kafka/secrets/snakeoil-ca-1.crt \
      -u superUser:superUser \
      https://schemaregistry:8085/subjects | jq .
   

   Your output should resemble:

   [
     "WIKIPEDIA_COUNT_GT_1-value",
     "wikipedia-activity-monitor-KSTREAM-AGGREGATE-STATE-STORE-0000000003-repartition-value",
     "wikipedia.parsed.replica-value",
     "WIKIPEDIABOT-value",
     "WIKIPEDIANOBOT-value",
     "_confluent-ksql-ksql-clusterquery_CTAS_WIKIPEDIA_COUNT_GT_1_7-Aggregate-GroupBy-repartition-value",
     "wikipedia.parsed.count-by-domain-value",
     "wikipedia.parsed-value",
     "_confluent-ksql-ksql-clusterquery_CTAS_WIKIPEDIA_COUNT_GT_1_7-Aggregate-Aggregate-Materialize-changelog-value"
   ]
   

2. Instead of using the superUser credentials, now use client credentials noexist:noexist (user does not exist in LDAP) to try to register a new Avro schema (a record with two fields username and userid) into Schema Registry for the value of a new topic users. It should fail due to an authorization error.

   docker-compose exec schemaregistry curl -X POST \
      -H "Content-Type: application/vnd.schemaregistry.v1+json" \
      --tlsv1.2 \
      --cacert /etc/kafka/secrets/snakeoil-ca-1.crt \
      --data '{ "schema": "[ { \"type\":\"record\", \"name\":\"user\", \"fields\": [ {\"name\":\"userid\",\"type\":\"long\"}, {\"name\":\"username\",\"type\":\"string\"} ]} ]" }' \
      -u noexist:noexist \
      https://schemaregistry:8085/subjects/users-value/versions
   

   Your output should resemble:

   {"error_code":401,"message":"Unauthorized"}
   

3. Instead of using credentials for a user that does not exist, now use the client credentials appSA:appSA (the user appSA exists in LDAP) to try to register a new Avro schema (a record with two fields username and userid) into Schema Registry for the value of a new topic users. It should fail due to an authorization error, with a different message than above.

   docker-compose exec schemaregistry curl -X POST \
      -H "Content-Type: application/vnd.schemaregistry.v1+json" \
      --tlsv1.2 \
      --cacert /etc/kafka/secrets/snakeoil-ca-1.crt \
      --data '{ "schema": "[ { \"type\":\"record\", \"name\":\"user\", \"fields\": [ {\"name\":\"userid\",\"type\":\"long\"}, {\"name\":\"username\",\"type\":\"string\"} ]} ]" }' \
      -u appSA:appSA \
      https://schemaregistry:8085/subjects/users-value/versions
   

   Your output should resemble:

   {"error_code":40301,"message":"User is denied operation Write on Subject: users-value"}
   

4. Create a role binding for the appSA client permitting it access to Schema Registry.

   Get the Kafka cluster ID:

   KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID=$(curl -s https://localhost:8091/v1/metadata/id --tlsv1.2 --cacert scripts/security/snakeoil-ca-1.crt | jq -r ".id")
   

   Create the role binding:

   # Create the role binding for the subject ``users-value``, i.e., the topic-value (versus the topic-key)
   docker-compose exec tools bash -c "confluent iam rbac role-binding create \
       --principal User:appSA \
       --role ResourceOwner \
       --resource Subject:users-value \
       --kafka-cluster-id $KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID \
       --schema-registry-cluster-id schema-registry"
   

5. Again try to register the schema. It should pass this time. Note the schema id that it returns, e.g. below schema id is 9.

   docker-compose exec schemaregistry curl -X POST \
      -H "Content-Type: application/vnd.schemaregistry.v1+json" \
      --tlsv1.2 \
      --cacert /etc/kafka/secrets/snakeoil-ca-1.crt \
      --data '{ "schema": "[ { \"type\":\"record\", \"name\":\"user\", \"fields\": [ {\"name\":\"userid\",\"type\":\"long\"}, {\"name\":\"username\",\"type\":\"string\"} ]} ]" }' \
      -u appSA:appSA \
      https://schemaregistry:8085/subjects/users-value/versions
   

   Your output should resemble:

   {"id":9}
   

6. View the new schema for the subject users-value. From Confluent Control Center, click Topics. Scroll down to and click on the topic users and select “SCHEMA”.

   

   You may alternatively request the schema via the command line:

   docker exec schemaregistry curl -s -X GET \
      --tlsv1.2 \
      --cacert /etc/kafka/secrets/snakeoil-ca-1.crt \
      -u appSA:appSA \
      https://schemaregistry:8085/subjects/users-value/versions/1 | jq .
   

   Your output should resemble:

   {
     "subject": "users-value",
     "version": 1,
     "id": 9,
     "schema": "{\"type\":\"record\",\"name\":\"user\",\"fields\":[{\"name\":\"username\",\"type\":\"string\"},{\"name\":\"userid\",\"type\":\"long\"}]}"
   }
   

7. Describe the topic users. Notice that it has a special configuration confluent.value.schema.validation=true which enables Schema Validation, a data governance feature in Confluent Server that gives operators a centralized location within the Kafka cluster itself to enforce data format correctness. Enabling Schema ID Validation allows brokers configured with confluent.schema.registry.url to validate that data produced to the topic is using a valid schema.

   docker-compose exec kafka1 kafka-topics \
      --describe \
      --topic users \
      --bootstrap-server kafka1:9091 \
      --command-config /etc/kafka/secrets/client_sasl_plain.config
   

   Your output should resemble:

   Topic: users      PartitionCount: 2       ReplicationFactor: 2    Configs: confluent.value.schema.validation=true
           Topic: users      Partition: 0    Leader: 1       Replicas: 1,2   Isr: 1,2        Offline:
           Topic: users      Partition: 1    Leader: 2       Replicas: 2,1   Isr: 2,1        Offline:
   

8. Now produce a non-Avro message to this topic using kafka-console-producer.

   docker-compose exec connect kafka-console-producer \
        --topic users \
        --broker-list kafka1:11091 \
        --producer-property security.protocol=SSL \
        --producer-property ssl.truststore.location=/etc/kafka/secrets/kafka.appSA.truststore.jks \
        --producer-property ssl.truststore.password=confluent \
        --producer-property ssl.keystore.location=/etc/kafka/secrets/kafka.appSA.keystore.jks \
        --producer-property ssl.keystore.password=confluent \
        --producer-property ssl.key.password=confluent
   

   After starting the console producer, it will wait for input. Enter a few characters and press enter. It should result in a failure with an error message that resembles:

   ERROR Error when sending message to topic users with key: null, value: 5 bytes with error: (org.apache.kafka.clients.producer.internals.ErrorLoggingCallback)
   org.apache.kafka.common.InvalidRecordException: This record has failed the validation on broker and hence be rejected.
   

   Close the console producer by entering CTRL+C.

9. Describe the topic wikipedia.parsed, which is the topic that the kafka-connect-sse source connector is writing to. Notice that it also has enabled Schema ID Validation.

   docker-compose exec kafka1 kafka-topics \
      --describe \
      --topic wikipedia.parsed \
      --bootstrap-server kafka1:9091 \
      --command-config /etc/kafka/secrets/client_sasl_plain.config
   

10. Next step: Learn more about Schema Registry with the Schema Registry Tutorial.

Confluent REST Proxy

The Confluent REST Proxy is running for optional client access. This demo showcases Confluent REST Proxy in two modes:

• Standalone service, listening for HTTPS requests on port 8086
• Embedded service on the Kafka brokers, listening for HTTPS requests on port 8091 on kafka1 and on port 8092 on kafka2 (these REST Proxy ports are shared with the broker’s Metadata Service (MDS) listener)

Standalone REST Proxy

For the next few steps, use the REST Proxy that is running as a standalone service.

1. Use the standalone REST Proxy to try to produce a message to the topic users, referencing schema id 9. This schema was registered in Schema Registry in the previous section. It should fail due to an authorization error.

   docker-compose exec restproxy curl -X POST \
      -H "Content-Type: application/vnd.kafka.avro.v2+json" \
      -H "Accept: application/vnd.kafka.v2+json" \
      --cert /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.certificate.pem \
      --key /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.key \
      --tlsv1.2 \
      --cacert /etc/kafka/secrets/snakeoil-ca-1.crt \
      --data '{"value_schema_id": 9, "records": [{"value": {"user":{"userid": 1, "username": "Bunny Smith"}}}]}' \
      -u appSA:appSA \
      https://restproxy:8086/topics/users
   

   Your output should resemble:

   {"offsets":[{"partition":null,"offset":null,"error_code":40301,"error":"Not authorized to access topics: [users]"}],"key_schema_id":null,"value_schema_id":9}
   

2. Create a role binding for the client permitting it produce to the topic users.

   Get the Kafka cluster ID:

   KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID=$(curl -s https://localhost:8091/v1/metadata/id --tlsv1.2 --cacert scripts/security/snakeoil-ca-1.crt | jq -r ".id")
   

   Create the role binding:

   # Create the role binding for the topic ``users``
   docker-compose exec tools bash -c "confluent iam rbac role-binding create \
       --principal User:appSA \
       --role DeveloperWrite \
       --resource Topic:users \
       --kafka-cluster-id $KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID"
   

3. Again try to produce a message to the topic users. It should pass this time.

   docker-compose exec restproxy curl -X POST \
      -H "Content-Type: application/vnd.kafka.avro.v2+json" \
      -H "Accept: application/vnd.kafka.v2+json" \
      --cert /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.certificate.pem \
      --key /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.key \
      --tlsv1.2 \
      --cacert /etc/kafka/secrets/snakeoil-ca-1.crt \
      --data '{"value_schema_id": 9, "records": [{"value": {"user":{"userid": 1, "username": "Bunny Smith"}}}]}' \
      -u appSA:appSA \
      https://restproxy:8086/topics/users
   

   Your output should resemble:

   {"offsets":[{"partition":1,"offset":0,"error_code":null,"error":null}],"key_schema_id":null,"value_schema_id":9}
   

4. Create consumer instance my_avro_consumer.

   docker-compose exec restproxy curl -X POST \
      -H "Content-Type: application/vnd.kafka.v2+json" \
      --cert /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.certificate.pem \
      --key /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.key \
      --tlsv1.2 \
      --cacert /etc/kafka/secrets/snakeoil-ca-1.crt \
      --data '{"name": "my_consumer_instance", "format": "avro", "auto.offset.reset": "earliest"}' \
      -u appSA:appSA \
      https://restproxy:8086/consumers/my_avro_consumer
   

   Your output should resemble:

   {"instance_id":"my_consumer_instance","base_uri":"https://restproxy:8086/consumers/my_avro_consumer/instances/my_consumer_instance"}
   

5. Subscribe my_avro_consumer to the users topic.

   docker-compose exec restproxy curl -X POST \
      -H "Content-Type: application/vnd.kafka.v2+json" \
      --cert /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.certificate.pem \
      --key /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.key \
      --tlsv1.2 \
      --cacert /etc/kafka/secrets/snakeoil-ca-1.crt \
      --data '{"topics":["users"]}' \
      -u appSA:appSA \
      https://restproxy:8086/consumers/my_avro_consumer/instances/my_consumer_instance/subscription
   

6. Try to consume messages for my_avro_consumer subscriptions. It should fail due to an authorization error.

   docker-compose exec restproxy curl -X GET \
      -H "Accept: application/vnd.kafka.avro.v2+json" \
      --cert /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.certificate.pem \
      --key /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.key \
      --tlsv1.2 \
      --cacert /etc/kafka/secrets/snakeoil-ca-1.crt \
      -u appSA:appSA \
      https://restproxy:8086/consumers/my_avro_consumer/instances/my_consumer_instance/records
   

   Your output should resemble:

   {"error_code":40301,"message":"Not authorized to access group: my_avro_consumer"}
   

7. Create a role binding for the client permitting it access to the consumer group my_avro_consumer.

   Get the Kafka cluster ID:

   KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID=$(curl -s https://localhost:8091/v1/metadata/id --tlsv1.2 --cacert scripts/security/snakeoil-ca-1.crt | jq -r ".id")
   

   Create the role binding:

   # Create the role binding for the group ``my_avro_consumer``
   docker-compose exec tools bash -c "confluent iam rbac role-binding create \
       --principal User:appSA \
       --role ResourceOwner \
       --resource Group:my_avro_consumer \
       --kafka-cluster-id $KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID"
   

8. Again try to consume messages for my_avro_consumer subscriptions. It should fail due to a different authorization error.

   # Note: Issue this command twice due to https://github.com/confluentinc/kafka-rest/issues/432
   docker-compose exec restproxy curl -X GET \
      -H "Accept: application/vnd.kafka.avro.v2+json" \
      --cert /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.certificate.pem \
      --key /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.key \
      --tlsv1.2 \
      --cacert /etc/kafka/secrets/snakeoil-ca-1.crt \
      -u appSA:appSA \
      https://restproxy:8086/consumers/my_avro_consumer/instances/my_consumer_instance/records
   
   docker-compose exec restproxy curl -X GET \
      -H "Accept: application/vnd.kafka.avro.v2+json" \
      --cert /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.certificate.pem \
      --key /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.key \
      --tlsv1.2 \
      --cacert /etc/kafka/secrets/snakeoil-ca-1.crt \
      -u appSA:appSA \
      https://restproxy:8086/consumers/my_avro_consumer/instances/my_consumer_instance/records
   

   Your output should resemble:

   {"error_code":40301,"message":"Not authorized to access topics: [users]"}
   

9. Create a role binding for the client permitting it access to the topic users.

   Get the Kafka cluster ID:

   KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID=$(curl -s https://localhost:8091/v1/metadata/id --tlsv1.2 --cacert scripts/security/snakeoil-ca-1.crt | jq -r ".id")
   

   Create the role binding:

   # Create the role binding for the group my_avro_consumer
   docker-compose exec tools bash -c "confluent iam rbac role-binding create \
       --principal User:appSA \
       --role DeveloperRead \
       --resource Topic:users \
       --kafka-cluster-id $KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID"
   

10. Again try to consume messages for my_avro_consumer subscriptions. It should pass this time.

    # Note: Issue this command twice due to https://github.com/confluentinc/kafka-rest/issues/432
    docker-compose exec restproxy curl -X GET \
       -H "Accept: application/vnd.kafka.avro.v2+json" \
       --cert /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.certificate.pem \
       --key /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.key \
       --tlsv1.2 \
       --cacert /etc/kafka/secrets/snakeoil-ca-1.crt \
       -u appSA:appSA \
       https://restproxy:8086/consumers/my_avro_consumer/instances/my_consumer_instance/records
    
    docker-compose exec restproxy curl -X GET \
       -H "Accept: application/vnd.kafka.avro.v2+json" \
       --cert /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.certificate.pem \
       --key /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.key \
       --tlsv1.2 \
       --cacert /etc/kafka/secrets/snakeoil-ca-1.crt \
       -u appSA:appSA \
       https://restproxy:8086/consumers/my_avro_consumer/instances/my_consumer_instance/records
    

    Your output should resemble:

    [{"topic":"users","key":null,"value":{"userid":1,"username":"Bunny Smith"},"partition":1,"offset":0}]
    

11. Delete the consumer instance my_avro_consumer.

    docker-compose exec restproxy curl -X DELETE \
       -H "Content-Type: application/vnd.kafka.v2+json" \
       --cert /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.certificate.pem \
       --key /etc/kafka/secrets/restproxy.key \
       --tlsv1.2 \
       --cacert /etc/kafka/secrets/snakeoil-ca-1.crt \
       -u appSA:appSA \
       https://restproxy:8086/consumers/my_avro_consumer/instances/my_consumer_instance
    

Embedded REST Proxy

For the next few steps, use the REST Proxy that is embedded on the Kafka brokers. Only REST Proxy API v3 is supported this time.

1. Create a role binding for the client to be granted ResourceOwner role for the topic dev_users.

   Get the Kafka cluster ID:

   KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID=$(curl -s https://localhost:8091/v1/metadata/id --tlsv1.2 --cacert scripts/security/snakeoil-ca-1.crt | jq -r ".id")
   

   Create the role binding:

   # Create the role binding for the topic ``dev_users``
   docker-compose exec tools bash -c "confluent iam rbac role-binding create \
       --principal User:appSA \
       --role ResourceOwner \
       --resource Topic:dev_users \
       --kafka-cluster-id $KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID"
   

2. Create the topic dev_users with embedded REST Proxy.

   Get the Kafka cluster ID:

   KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID=$(curl -s https://localhost:8091/v1/metadata/id --tlsv1.2 --cacert scripts/security/snakeoil-ca-1.crt | jq -r ".id")
   

   Use curl to create the topic:

   docker exec restproxy curl -s -X POST \
      -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      -H "accept: application/json" \
      -d "{\"topic_name\":\"dev_users\",\"partitions_count\":64,\"replication_factor\":2,\"configs\":[{\"name\":\"cleanup.policy\",\"value\":\"compact\"},{\"name\":\"compression.type\",\"value\":\"gzip\"}]}" \
      --cert /etc/kafka/secrets/mds.certificate.pem \
      --key /etc/kafka/secrets/mds.key \
      --tlsv1.2 \
      --cacert /etc/kafka/secrets/snakeoil-ca-1.crt \
      -u appSA:appSA \
      "https://kafka1:8091/kafka/v3/clusters/$KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID/topics" | jq
   

3. List topics with embedded REST Proxy to find the newly created dev_users.

   Get the Kafka cluster ID:

   KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID=$(curl -s https://localhost:8091/v1/metadata/id --tlsv1.2 --cacert scripts/security/snakeoil-ca-1.crt | jq -r ".id")
   

   Use curl to list the topics:

   docker exec restproxy curl -s -X GET \
      -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
      -H "accept: application/json" \
      --cert /etc/kafka/secrets/mds.certificate.pem \
      --key /etc/kafka/secrets/mds.key \
      --tlsv1.2 \
      --cacert /etc/kafka/secrets/snakeoil-ca-1.crt \
      -u appSA:appSA \
      https://kafka1:8091/kafka/v3/clusters/$KAFKA_CLUSTER_ID/topics | jq '.data[].topic_name'
   

   Your output should resemble below. Output may vary, depending on other topics you may have created, but at least you should see the topic dev_users created in the previous step.

   "_confluent-monitoring"
   "dev_users"
   "users"
   "wikipedia-activity-monitor-KSTREAM-AGGREGATE-STATE-STORE-0000000003-changelog"
   "wikipedia-activity-monitor-KSTREAM-AGGREGATE-STATE-STORE-0000000003-repartition"
   "wikipedia.failed"
   "wikipedia.parsed"
   "wikipedia.parsed.count-by-domain"
   "wikipedia.parsed.replica"
   

Failed broker

To simulate a failed broker, stop the Docker container running one of the two Kafka brokers.

1. Stop the Docker container running Kafka broker 2.

   docker-compose stop kafka2
   

2. After a few minutes, observe the Broker summary show that the number of brokers has decreased from 2 to 1, and there are many under replicated partitions.

   

3. View Topic information details to see that there are out of sync replicas.

   

4. Look at the production and consumption metrics and notice that the clients are all still working.

   

5. Restart the Docker container running Kafka broker 2.

   docker-compose start kafka2
   

6. After about a minute, observe the Broker summary in Confluent Control Center. The broker count has recovered to 2, and the topic partitions are back to reporting no under replicated partitions.

   

7. Click on the broker count 2 inside the “Brokers” box and when the “Brokers overview” pane appears, click inside the “Partitioning and replication” box to view when broker counts changed.

   

Alerting

There are many types of Control Center alerts and many ways to configure them. Use the Alerts management page to define triggers and actions, or click on individual resources to setup alerts from there.

1. This example already has pre-configured triggers and actions. View the Alerts Triggers screen, and click Edit against each trigger to see configuration details.

   • The trigger Under Replicated Partitions happens when a broker reports non-zero under replicated partitions, and it causes an action Email Administrator.
   • The trigger Consumption Difference happens when consumption difference for the Elasticsearch connector consumer group is greater than 0, and it causes an action Email Administrator.
   

2. If you followed the steps in the failed broker section, view the Alert history to see that the trigger Under Replicated Partitions happened and caused an alert when you stopped broker 2.

   

3. You can also trigger the Consumption Difference trigger. In the Kafka Connect -> Sinks screen, edit the running Elasticsearch sink connector.

4. In the Connect view, pause the Elasticsearch sink connector in Settings by pressing the pause icon in the top right. This stops consumption for the related consumer group.

   

5. View the Alert history to see that this trigger happened and caused an alert.

   

Confluent Self-Balancing Clusters

Self-Balancing Clusters automates your resource workload balancing, provides failure detection and self-healing, and allows you to add or decommission brokers as needed, with no manual tuning required. This simplifies scale-up and scale-down operations, ensuring workload is assigned to new brokers and automating recovery in case of a failure.

This section showcases two features of Self-Balancing Clusters:

• Adding a new broker to the cluster (scale-up): observe Self-Balancing Clusters rebalance the cluster by assigning existing partitions to the new broker.
• Simulating a failure by killing a broker: observe Self-Balancing Clusters reassign the failed broker’s replicas to the remaining brokers.

Before running this section:

• Self-Balancing requires 15 minutes to initialize and collect metrics from brokers in the cluster, so after starting cp-demo, wait at least this time before proceeding.
• Because these steps add a third broker, ensure you have adequate resources allocated to Docker.

1. Run scripts/sbc/add-broker.sh to add a new broker kafka3 to the cluster.

   ./scripts/sbc/add-broker.sh
   

   The script returns when Self-Balancing Clusters has acknowledged the broker addition and started a rebalance task.

2. Open Control Center at http://localhost:9021 and navigate to Brokers. The Self-balancing panel shows 1 in-progress task.

   

   Click on the panel and locate the in-progress add-broker task for broker with ID broker.3.

   

3. The add-broker rebalance task progresses through stages PLAN_COMPUTATION, REASSIGNMENT and finally COMPLETED. The time spent in each phase varies depending on the hardware you are running. Check the status using the following scripts to read the broker logs:

   ./scripts/sbc/validate_sbc_add_broker_plan_computation.sh
   ./scripts/sbc/validate_sbc_add_broker_reassignment.sh
   ./scripts/sbc/validate_sbc_add_broker_completed.sh
   

4. After a few minutes, when rebalancing has completed, the add-broker rebalance task in Confluent Control Center moves to Success. Run the following command to view replica placements for all topic-partitions in the cluster:

   docker-compose exec kafka1 kafka-replica-status \
       --bootstrap-server kafka1:9091 \
       --admin.config /etc/kafka/secrets/client_sasl_plain.config
   

   Look for instances of 3 in the Replica column, showing that rebalancing has assigned partition replicas (leaders and followers) to the new broker.

5. Simulate a broker-failure by running scripts/sbc/kill-broker.sh to kill the previously-added broker kafka3:

   ./scripts/sbc/kill-broker.sh
   

   This script returns when Self-Balancing Clusters has detected the broker failure and the recovery wait-time KAFKA_CONFLUENT_BALANCER_HEAL_BROKER_FAILURE_THRESHOLD_MS has expired, triggering replica reassignment from the kafka3 broker to the original two brokers. Note that in cp-demo, the threshold time has been set to 30 seconds, which is artificially low but useful in a demo environment.

6. Monitor the progress of replica-reassignment from the failed broker, which eventually reduces the under-replicated partitions in the cluster back to zero. To track completion of self-healing, check the Self-Balancing panel in Confluent Control Center, or run the following scripts:

   ./scripts/sbc/validate_sbc_kill_broker_started.sh
   ./scripts/sbc/validate_sbc_kill_broker_completed.sh
   

7. When self-healing has completed, the Kafka cluster should no longer have any under-replicated partitions that were previously assigned to failed broker kafka3. Confirm this by running this command and verifying no output, meaning no out-of-sync replicas:

   docker exec kafka1 kafka-replica-status \
        --bootstrap-server kafka1:9091 \
        --admin.config /etc/kafka/secrets/client_sasl_plain.config \
        --verbose | grep "IsInIsr: false"
   

Monitoring

This tutorial has demonstrated how Confluent Control Center helps users manage their Confluent Platform deployment and how it provides monitoring capabilities for the cluster and applications. For a practical guide to optimizing your Kafka deployment for various service goals including throughput, latency, durability and availability, and useful metrics to monitor for performance and cluster health for on-premises Kafka clusters, see the Optimizing Your Apache Kafka Deployment whitepaper.

For most Confluent Platform users the Confluent Control Center monitoring and integrations are sufficient for production usage in their on-premises Apache Kafka® deployments. There are additional monitoring solutions for various use cases, as described below.

Metrics API

The Confluent Cloud Metrics API is a REST API you can use to query timeseries metrics. You can use the Metrics API to get telemetry data for both the on-premises Confluent Platform cluster as well as the Confluent Cloud cluster.

• On-premises metrics (enabled by Telemetry Reporter) using the endpoint https://api.telemetry.confluent.cloud/v2/metrics/hosted-monitoring/query

  Note

  The hosted monitoring endpoint is in preview and the endpont will eventually be renamed https://api.telemetry.confluent.cloud/v2/metrics/health-plus/query

• Confluent Cloud metrics using the endpoint https://api.telemetry.confluent.cloud/v2/metrics/cloud/query

• See the Confluent Cloud Metrics API Reference for more information.

The Metrics API and Telemetry Reporter powers Health+, the fully-managed monitoring solution for Confluent Platform. You can enable Health+ for free and add premium capabilities as you see fit.

Popular third-party monitoring tools like Datadog and Grafana Cloud integrate with the Metrics API out-of-the-box, or if you manage your own Prometheus database, the Metrics API can also export metrics in Prometheus format.

See Module 2: Deploy Hybrid Confluent Platform and Confluent Cloud Environment to play hands-on with the Metrics API.

JMX

Some users wish to integrate with other monitoring solutions like Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, and Splunk. The following JMX-based monitoring stacks help users setup a ‘single pane of glass’ monitoring solution for all their organization’s services and applications, including Kafka.

Here are some examples of monitoring stacks that integrate with Confluent Platform:

1. JMX Exporter + Prometheus + Grafana (runnable with cp-demo from https://github.com/confluentinc/jmx-monitoring-stacks):

   
   
   

2. Jolokia + Elasticsearch + Kibana (runnable with cp-demo from https://github.com/confluentinc/jmx-monitoring-stacks):

   
   
   

3. Monitoring Confluent Platform with Datadog:

   

Related content

• Scripted Confluent Platform Demo
• Module 2: Deploy Hybrid Confluent Platform and Confluent Cloud Environment
• Troubleshooting and Stopping the Demo