Apache Kafka Channel Example

You can install and configure the Apache Kafka CRD (KafkaChannel) as the default channel configuration in Knative Eventing.

Prerequisites

• Ensure that you meet the prerequisites listed in the Apache Kafka overview.
• A Kubernetes cluster with Knative Kafka Channel installed.

Creating a KafkaChannel channel CRD

Create a new object by configuring the YAML file as follows:

cat <<-EOF | kubectl apply -f -
---
apiVersion: messaging.knative.dev/v1beta1
kind: KafkaChannel
metadata:
  name: my-kafka-channel
spec:
  numPartitions: 3
  replicationFactor: 1
EOF

Specifying the default channel configuration

To configure the usage of the KafkaChannel CRD as the default channel configuration, edit the default-ch-webhook ConfigMap as follows:

cat <<-EOF | kubectl apply -f -
---
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: default-ch-webhook
  namespace: knative-eventing
data:
  # Configuration for defaulting channels that do not specify CRD implementations.
  default-ch-config: |
    clusterDefault:
      apiVersion: messaging.knative.dev/v1beta1
      kind: KafkaChannel
      spec:
        numPartitions: 3
        replicationFactor: 1
EOF

Creating an Apache Kafka channel using the default channel configuration

Now that KafkaChannel is set as the default channel configuration, you can use the channels.messaging.knative.dev CRD to create a new Apache Kafka channel, using the generic Channel:

cat <<-EOF | kubectl apply -f -
---
apiVersion: messaging.knative.dev/v1
kind: Channel
metadata:
  name: testchannel-one
EOF

Check Kafka for a testchannel topic. With Strimzi this can be done by using the command:

kubectl -n kafka exec -it my-cluster-kafka-0 -- bin/kafka-topics.sh --zookeeper localhost:2181 --list

The result is:

...
knative-messaging-kafka.default.testchannel-one
...

The Apache Kafka topic that is created by the channel implementation is prefixed with knative-messaging-kafka. This indicates it is an Apache Kafka channel from Knative. It contains the name of the namespace, default in this example, followed by the actual name of the channel.

Configuring the Knative broker for Apache Kafka channels

To setup a broker that will use the new default Kafka channels, you must create a new default broker, using the command:

kubectl create -f - <<EOF
apiVersion: eventing.knative.dev/v1
kind: Broker
metadata:
 name: default
EOF

This will give you two pods, such as:

default-broker-filter-64658fc79f-nf596                            1/1     Running     0          15m
default-broker-ingress-ff79755b6-vj9jt                            1/1     Running     0          15m

Inside the Apache Kafka cluster you should see two new topics, such as:

...
knative-messaging-kafka.default.default-kn2-ingress
knative-messaging-kafka.default.default-kn2-trigger
...

Creating a service and trigger to use the Apache Kafka broker

To use the Apache Kafka based broker, let’s take a look at a simple demo. Use theApiServerSource to publish events to the broker as well as the Trigger API, which then routes events to a Knative Service.

1. Install ksvc, using the command:

   kubectl apply -f 000-ksvc.yaml

2. Install a source that publishes to the default broker

   kubectl apply -f 020-k8s-events.yaml

3. Create a trigger that routes the events to the ksvc:

   kubectl apply -f 030-trigger.yaml

Verifying your Apache Kafka channel and broker

Now that your Eventing cluster is configured for Apache Kafka, you can verify your configuration with the following options.

Receive events via Knative

Now you can see the events in the log of the ksvc using the command:

kubectl logs --selector='serving.knative.dev/service=broker-kafka-display' -c user-container

Authentication against an Apache Kafka

In production environments it is common that the Apache Kafka cluster is secured using TLS or SASL. This section shows how to confiugure the KafkaChannel to work against a protected Apache Kafka cluster, with the two supported TLS and SASL authentication methods.

TLS authentication

To use TLS authentication you must create:

• A CA certificate
• A client certificate and key

NOTE: Kafka channels require these files to be in .pem format. If your files are in a different format, you must convert them to .pem.

1. Create the certificate files as secrets in your chosen namespace:

$ kubectl create secret --namespace <namespace> generic <kafka-auth-secret> \
  --from-file=ca.crt=caroot.pem \
  --from-file=user.crt=certificate.pem \
  --from-file=user.key=key.pem

NOTE: It is important to use the same keys (ca.crt, user.crt and user.key).

Reference your secret and the namespace of the secret in the config-kafka ConfigMap:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: config-kafka
  namespace: knative-eventing
data:
  bootstrapServers: <bootstrap-servers>
  authSecretName: <kafka-auth-secret>
  authSecretNamespace: <namespace>

SASL authentication

To use SASL authentication, you will need the following information:

• A username and password.
• The type of SASL mechanism you wish to use. For example; PLAIN, SCRAM-SHA-256 or SCRAM-SHA-512.

NOTE: It is recommended to also enable TLS. If you enable this, you will also need the ca.crt certificate as described in the previous section.

1. Create the certificate files as secrets in your chosen namespace:

$ kubectl create secret --namespace <namespace> generic <kafka-auth-secret> \
  --from-file=ca.crt=caroot.pem \
  --from-literal=password="SecretPassword" \
  --from-literal=saslType="SCRAM-SHA-512" \
  --from-literal=user="my-sasl-user"

NOTE: It is important to use the same keys; user, password and saslType.

Reference your secret and the namespace of the secret in the config-kafka ConfigMap:

apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: config-kafka
  namespace: knative-eventing
data:
  bootstrapServers: <bootstrap-servers>
  authSecretName: <kafka-auth-Secret>
  authSecretNamespace: <namespace>

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