Running a minimal local Kafka with Docker

Note: This setup is following this guide: Guide to Setting Up Apache Kafka Using Docker | Baeldung

Single Node

To run a local Kafka installation with docker, we need to start a Zookeeper server and also an Apache Kafka server.

docker-compose.yml Configuration

The Zookeeper server needs to start first, so we configure this dependency in a docker-compose.yml file. This ensures that the Zookeeper server starts before the Kafka server and also stops after it.

Create a docker-compose.yml file with two services (zookeeper and kafka)

version: '2'
services:
  zookeeper:
    image: confluentinc/cp-zookeeper:6.0.3
    environment:
      ZOOKEEPER_CLIENT_PORT: 2181
      ZOOKEEPER_TICK_TIME: 2000
    ports:
      - 22181:2181
  
  kafka:
    image: confluentinc/cp-kafka:6.0.3
    depends_on:
      - zookeeper
    ports:
      - 29092:29092
    environment:
      KAFKA_BROKER_ID: 1
      KAFKA_ZOOKEEPER_CONNECT: zookeeper:2181
      KAFKA_ADVERTISED_LISTENERS: PLAINTEXT://kafka:9092,PLAINTEXT_HOST://localhost:29092
      KAFKA_LISTENER_SECURITY_PROTOCOL_MAP: PLAINTEXT:PLAINTEXT,PLAINTEXT_HOST:PLAINTEXT
      KAFKA_INTER_BROKER_LISTENER_NAME: PLAINTEXT
      KAFKA_OFFSETS_TOPIC_REPLICATION_FACTOR: 1

Docker Image versions

For the Zookeeper and Kafka we use the image tags 6.0.3 due we use Kafka in version 2.6 and this tag of the Confluent-Image is compatile with this Kafka-version.

For more information see: Supported Versions and Interoperability | Confluent

Used Ports

Zookeeper

• Inside container: listening on port 2181 for the kafka service.
• Client running on the host: port 22181.

Kafka

• Inside container: port 9092
• Client running on the host: 29092

Starting the Kafka server

docker-compose up -d

The Kafka server should now be available on Port 29092.

Connecting to Kafka with KafDrop

To connect to the Kafka running in Docker, there is the possibility to use Kafdrop, an UI Tool for Kafka.

1. Clone the repo
2. Build it with mvn clean package
3. Run it with the following command:

java -jar ./target/kafdrop-2.1.0.jar --zookeeper.connect=localhost:22181 --kafka.brokers=localhost:29092

Note: Kafdrop will show an error if there are no topics defined on the Kafka. (So maybe push some messages with the Mock-Cli first)