Azure Event Hubs

Detailed documentation on the Azure Event Hubs pubsub component

Component format

To setup an Azure Event Hubs pub/sub, create a component of type pubsub.azure.eventhubs. See this guide on how to create and apply a pub/sub configuration. Apart from the configuration metadata fields shown below, Azure Event Hubs also supports Azure Authentication mechanisms.

apiVersion: dapr.io/v1alpha1
kind: Component
metadata:
  name: eventhubs-pubsub
spec:
  type: pubsub.azure.eventhubs
  version: v1
  metadata:
    # Either connectionString or eventHubNamespace is required
    # Use connectionString when *not* using Azure AD
    - name: connectionString
      value: "Endpoint=sb://{EventHubNamespace}.servicebus.windows.net/;SharedAccessKeyName={PolicyName};SharedAccessKey={Key};EntityPath={EventHub}"
    # Use eventHubNamespace when using Azure AD
    - name: eventHubNamespace
      value: "namespace"
    - name: enableEntityManagement
      value: "false"
    # The following four properties are needed only if enableEntityManagement is set to true
    - name: resourceGroupName
      value: "test-rg"
    - name: subscriptionID
      value: "value of Azure subscription ID"
    - name: partitionCount
      value: "1"
    - name: messageRetentionInDays
      value: "3"
    # Checkpoint store attributes
    - name: storageAccountName
      value: "myeventhubstorage"
    - name: storageAccountKey
      value: "112233445566778899"
    - name: storageContainerName
      value: "myeventhubstoragecontainer"
    # Alternative to passing storageAccountKey
    - name: storageConnectionString
      value: "DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=<account>;AccountKey=<account-key>"

Warning

The above example uses secrets as plain strings. It is recommended to use a secret store for the secrets as described here.

Spec metadata fields

Azure Active Directory (AAD) authentication

The Azure Event Hubs pub/sub component supports authentication using all Azure Active Directory mechanisms. For further information and the relevant component metadata fields to provide depending on the choice of AAD authentication mechanism, see the docs for authenticating to Azure.

Example Configuration

apiVersion: dapr.io/v1alpha1
kind: Component
metadata:
  name: eventhubs-pubsub
spec:
  type: pubsub.azure.eventhubs
  version: v1
  metadata:
    # Azure Authentication Used
    - name: azureTenantId
      value: "***"
    - name: azureClientId
      value: "***"
    - name: azureClientSecret
      value: "***"
    - name: eventHubNamespace 
      value: "namespace"
    - name: enableEntityManagement
      value: "false"
    # The following four properties are needed only if enableEntityManagement is set to true
    - name: resourceGroupName
      value: "test-rg"
    - name: subscriptionID
      value: "value of Azure subscription ID"
    - name: partitionCount
      value: "1"
    - name: messageRetentionInDays
    # Checkpoint store attributes
    # In this case, we're using Azure AD to access the storage account too
    - name: storageAccountName
      value: "myeventhubstorage"
    - name: storageContainerName
      value: "myeventhubstoragecontainer"

Sending multiple messages

Azure Event Hubs supports sending multiple messages in a single operation. To set the metadata for bulk operations, set the query parameters on the HTTP request or the gRPC metadata as documented here

Create an Azure Event Hub

Follow the instructions on the documentation to set up Azure Event Hubs.

Because this component uses Azure Storage as checkpoint store, you will also need an Azure Storage Account. Follow the instructions on the documentation to manage the storage account access keys.

See the documentation on how to get the Event Hubs connection string (note this is not for the Event Hubs namespace).

Create consumer groups for each subscriber

For every Dapr app that wants to subscribe to events, create an Event Hubs consumer group with the name of the Dapr app ID. For example, a Dapr app running on Kubernetes with dapr.io/app-id: "myapp" will need an Event Hubs consumer group named myapp.

Note: Dapr passes the name of the consumer group to the Event Hub, so this is not supplied in the metadata.

Entity Management

When entity management is enabled in the metadata, as long as the application has the right role and permissions to manipulate the Event Hub namespace, Dapr can automatically create the Event Hub and consumer group for you.

The Evet Hub name is the topic field in the incoming request to publish or subscribe to, while the consumer group name is the name of the Dapr app which subscribes to a given Event Hub. For example, a Dapr app running on Kubernetes with name dapr.io/app-id: "myapp" requires an Event Hubs consumer group named myapp.

Entity management is only possible when using Azure AD Authentication and not using a connection string.

Dapr passes the name of the consumer group to the Event Hub, so this is not supplied in the metadata.

Subscribing to Azure IoT Hub Events

Azure IoT Hub provides an endpoint that is compatible with Event Hubs, so the Azure Event Hubs pubsub component can also be used to subscribe to Azure IoT Hub events.

The device-to-cloud events created by Azure IoT Hub devices will contain additional IoT Hub System Properties, and the Azure Event Hubs pubsub component for Dapr will return the following as part of the response metadata:

For example, the headers of a delivered HTTP subscription message would contain:

{
  'user-agent': 'fasthttp',
  'host': '127.0.0.1:3000',
  'content-type': 'application/json',
  'content-length': '120',
  'iothub-connection-device-id': 'my-test-device',
  'iothub-connection-auth-generation-id': '637618061680407492',
  'iothub-connection-auth-method': '{"scope":"module","type":"sas","issuer":"iothub","acceptingIpFilterRule":null}',
  'iothub-connection-module-id': 'my-test-module-a',
  'iothub-enqueuedtime': '2021-07-13T22:08:09Z',
  'message-id': 'my-custom-message-id',
  'x-opt-sequence-number': '35',
  'x-opt-enqueued-time': '2021-07-13T22:08:09Z',
  'x-opt-offset': '21560',
  'traceparent': '00-4655608164bc48b985b42d39865f3834-ed6cf3697c86e7bd-01'
}

Related links

• Basic schema for a Dapr component
• Read this guide for instructions on configuring pub/sub components
• Pub/Sub building block
• Authentication to Azure

Last modified February 2, 2023: Apply suggestions from code review (5f8ee9e6)