Running Kafka

There are two ways to run Kafka, depending on whether we install it directly or through Confluent Platform.

If we install it directly, the steps to run Kafka are as follows.

For macOS users, your paths might be different if you've installed using brew. Check the output of brew install kafka command for the exact command that you can use to start Zookeeper and Kafka.

Go to the Kafka installation directory (/usr/local/kafka for macOS users and /opt/kafka/ for Linux users), as in the example:

> cd /usr/local/kafka

First of all, we need to start Zookeeper (the Kafka dependency with Zookeeper is and will remain strong). Type the following:

> ./bin/zookeeper-server-start.sh ../config/zookeper.properties

ZooKeeper JMX enabled by default

Using config: /usr/local/etc/zookeeper/zoo.cfg

Starting zookeeper ... STARTED

To check whether Zookeeper is running, use the lsof command over the 9093 port (default port) as follows:

> lsof -i :9093

COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME

java 12529 admin 406u IPv6 0xc41a24baa4fedb11 0t0 TCP *:9093 (LISTEN)

Now run the Kafka server that comes with the installation by going to /usr/local/kafka/ for macOS users and /opt/kafka/ for Linux users:

> ./bin/kafka-server-start.sh ./config/server.properties

Now there is an Apache Kafka broker running in your machine.

Remember that Zookeeper must be running on the machine before starting Kafka. If you don't want to start Zookeeper manually every time you need to run Kafka, install it as an operation system auto-start service.