USM Agent networking configuration

This page describes networking configuration options for the Unified Stream Manager (USM) Agent.

For information about agent sizing, high availability, and monitoring, see USM Agent: sizing, high availability, and monitoring.

IPv6 and dual-stack networking

Starting with USM Agent version 1.1.0 and Confluent Platform 8.2, the USM Agent supports dual-stack networking. Dual-stack combines IPv4 and IPv6 to allow clients in IPv6-enabled environments to connect to the agent over IPv6 while preserving compatibility with IPv4-only deployments.

The agent uses auto mode by default, which automatically detects IPv6 support and configures listeners accordingly. To override this behavior, set the confluent.usm-agent.ip.dual.stack.enabled property to true or false.

Note

This feature is backward compatible and requires no configuration changes for existing deployments.

Dual-stack configuration modes

The confluent.usm-agent.ip.dual.stack.enabled property accepts the following values:

Value	Description
`auto` (default)	The agent automatically enables IPv6 support in addition to IPv4 on platforms where IPv6 is available. If the OS does not support IPv6, the agent uses IPv4-only mode.
`true` (Forced dual-stack mode)	The agent enables IPv6 support in addition to IPv4 without checking for OS support. Use this value if you want the agent to run in dual-stack mode regardless of automatic detection.
`false` (Forced IPv4-only mode)	The agent runs in IPv4-only mode and does not add IPv6 listeners. Use this value to strictly restrict the agent to IPv4.

Supported environments

Dual-stack support works in the following environments:

IPv4-only environments: The agent continues to operate as before and requires no configuration changes.
Dual-stack (IPv4 + IPv6) environments: When you set the property to auto or true, the agent accepts connections over both IPv4 and IPv6.

The agent does not support IPv6-only environments. The agent requires IPv4 connectivity to reach Confluent Cloud due to dependencies that are only available over IPv4.

Configure dual-stack with Confluent for Kubernetes

To configure dual-stack in a CFK deployment, add the property to the configOverrides.server section of your USM Agent custom resource:

spec:
  configOverrides:
    server:
      - confluent.usm-agent.ip.dual.stack.enabled=auto

Replace auto with true or false to match your environment.

Configure dual-stack with Ansible Playbooks for Confluent Platform

By default, Ansible Playbooks for Confluent Platform installs USM Agent version 1.0.0. To deploy version 1.1.0, you must override the package version in your inventory file.

To enable dual-stack, set the package version to 1.1.0 and add the property to the usm_agent_custom_properties section:

all:
  vars:
    # Set USM Agent version to 1.1.0
    confluent_usm_agent_package_version: "1.1.0"
    usm_agent_custom_properties:
      confluent.usm-agent.ip.dual.stack.enabled: auto