kafka

distributed event streaming platform

TLDR

Start Kafka server

$ kafka-server-start.sh [config/server.properties]

Stop Kafka server

$ kafka-server-stop.sh

Create a topic with partitions and replication

$ kafka-topics.sh --create --topic [mytopic] --partitions [3] --replication-factor [1] --bootstrap-server [localhost:9092]

List all topics

$ kafka-topics.sh --list --bootstrap-server [localhost:9092]

Describe a topic

$ kafka-topics.sh --describe --topic [mytopic] --bootstrap-server [localhost:9092]

Produce messages to a topic

$ kafka-console-producer.sh --topic [mytopic] --bootstrap-server [localhost:9092]

Consume messages from the beginning

$ kafka-console-consumer.sh --topic [mytopic] --from-beginning --bootstrap-server [localhost:9092]

Apache Kafka is a distributed event streaming platform. It provides high-throughput, low-latency message handling for real-time data pipelines and streaming applications.Kafka organizes messages into topics, with partitions for parallelism and replication for fault tolerance. Producers send messages; consumers read them.

CONFIGURATION

$ # server.properties (KRaft mode, Kafka 3.3+)
node.id=1
process.roles=broker,controller
controller.quorum.voters=1@localhost:9093
listeners=PLAINTEXT://:9092,CONTROLLER://:9093
log.dirs=/var/kafka-logs

$ # server.properties (legacy ZooKeeper mode)
broker.id=0
listeners=PLAINTEXT://:9092
log.dirs=/var/kafka-logs
zookeeper.connect=localhost:2181

KEY CONCEPTS

- Topic: Category for messages- Partition: Ordered, immutable sequence- Producer: Sends messages to topics- Consumer: Reads messages from topics- Broker: Kafka server node- Consumer Group: Coordinated consumers

CAVEATS

ZooKeeper support was removed in Kafka 4.0; KRaft mode is now required for new deployments. Memory and disk intensive. Topic configuration affects retention and storage. Consumer group rebalancing can cause temporary processing delays.

HISTORY

Kafka was developed at LinkedIn and open-sourced in 2011. Named after author Franz Kafka, it became an Apache project and is now fundamental infrastructure for event-driven architectures.