Skip to main content
Version: 1.14

Kafka

Prerequisites

To better understand how Nussknacker works with Kafka, it's recommended to read the following first:

If you want to use Flink engine, this is also recommended:

Concepts

Sources and sinks

Kafka topics are native streaming data input to Nussknacker and the native output where results of Nussknacker scenarios processing are placed. In Nussknacker terminology input topics are handled by source components, output topics are handled by sink components. This section provides important details of Nussknacker's integration with Kafka and Schema Registry.

Schemas

Schema defines the format of data. Nussknacker expects that messages in topics are described by the schema. Nussknacker uses information contained in schemas for code completion and validation of messages. Schema of message can be described in Avro Schema format or JSON Schema format (Confluent Schema Registry only)

Schemas are managed by Schema Registry - Confluent Schema Registry and Azure Schema Registry are supported.

To preview schemas or add a new version, you can use tools available on your cloud platform or tools like AKHQ. The Nussknacker Quickstart (Streaming Processing Mode) comes with bundled AKHQ, so you can add and modify schemas without the need to install additional tools. The link to AKHQ is available in the Designer in Scenarios tab under Data label.

Association between schema with topic

To properly present information about topics and version and to recognize which schema is assigned to version, Nussknacker follow conventions:

  • For Confluent-based implementation it uses TopicNameStrategy for subject names. It means that it looks for schemas available at <topic-name>-(key or value) subject. For example for topic transactions, it looks for schemas at transactions-key subject for key and transactions-value subject for value
  • In the Azure Schema Registry, subject concept doesn't exist - schemas are grouped by the same schema name. Because of that, Nussknacker introduces own convention for association between schema and topic: schema name should be in format: CamelCasedTopicNameKey for keys and CamelCasedTopicNameValue for values. For example for input-events (or input.events) topic, schema name should be named InputEventsKey for key or InputEventsValue for value. Be aware that it may require change of schema name not only in Azure portal but also inside schema content - those names should be the same to make serialization works correctly

Connection and Authentication Configuration

Under the hood Nussknacker uses kafkaProperties to configure standard kafka client. It means that all standard Kafka client properties will be respected. For detailed instruction where it should be placed inside Nussknacker's configuration, take a look at Configuration details section

Kafka - Connection

To configure connection to kafka, you need to configure at least bootstrap.servers property. It should contain comma separated list of urls to Kafka brokers.

Kafka - Authentication

Kafka cluster has multiple options to configure Authentication. Take a look at Kafka security documentation to see detailed examples how those options should be translated into properties. For example for the typical SASL_SSL configuration with credential in JAAS format, you should provide configuration similar to this one:

kafkaProperties {
"schema.registry.url": "http://schemaregistry:8081"
"bootstrap.servers": "broker1:9092,broker2:9092"
"security.protocol": "SASL_SSL"
"sasl.mechanism": "PLAIN"
"sasl.jaas.config": "org.apache.kafka.common.security.plain.PlainLoginModule required username=\"some_user\" password=\"some_user\";"
}

If you use Azure Events Hubs (which uses this mode), username will be $ConnectionString and password will be the connection string starting with Endpoint=sb://.

In case if you use your own CA and client+server certificates authentication, you should additionally provide: ssl.keystore.location, ssl.keystore.password, ssl.key.password, ssl.truststore.location, ssl.truststore.password.

To make sure if your configuration is correct, you can test it with standard kafka-cli commands like kafka-console-consumer, kafka-console-producer or kcat.

Some tutorials how to do that:

After you'll get properly working set of properties, you just need to copy it to Nussknacker's configuration.

Schema Registry - Connection

Currently, Nussknacker supports two implementations of Schema Registries: based on Confluent Schema Registry and based on Azure Schema Registry.

To configure connection Schema Registry, you need to configure at least schema.registry.url. It should contain comma separated list of urls to Schema Registry. For the single node installation, it will be just an url. Be aware that contrary to Kafka brokers, Schema Registry urls should start with https:// or http://.

Nussknacker determines which registry implementation (Confluent or Azure) is used from the schema.registry.url property. If the URL ends with .servicebus.windows.net, Nussknacker assumes that Azure schema registry is used; if not Confluent schema registry is assumed.

Confluent-based Schema Registry - Connection and Authentication

For Confluent-based implementation you should provide at least schema.registry.url. If your schema registry is secured by user and password, you should additionally provide "basic.auth.credentials.source": USER_INFO and "basic.auth.user.info": "some_user:some_password" entries. To read more see Schema registry documentation

To make sure if your configuration is correct, you can test it with kafka-avro-console-consumer, kafka-avro-console-producer available in Confluent Schema Registry distribution. After you'll get properly working set of properties, you just need to copy it to Nussknacker's configuration.

Azure-based Schema Registry - Connection and Authentication

For Azure-based implementation, firstly you should provide schema.registry.url and schema.group properties. First one should be the https://<event-hubs-namespace>.servicebus.windows.net url, the second one should be the name of schema groups where will be located all schemas used by Nussknacker.

Regarding authentication, a couple of options can be used - you can provide credential via: azure.tenant.id, azure.client.id and azure.client.secret properties, or you can use one of other methods handled by Azure's DefaultAzureCredential. For example via Azure CLI or Azure PowerShell.

Integration with Azure Schema Registry requires Kafka connection, make sure you have provided proper configuration.

Messaging

You can use standard kafka-cli commands like kafka-console-consumer, kafka-console-producer, kcat, Confluent's kafka-avro-console-consumer, kafka-avro-console-producer commands for Confluent-based Avro encoded messages or graphical tools like AKHQ to interact with kafka source and sink topics used in Nu scenarios.

Be aware that Azure-based Avro encoded messages have a little different format than Confluent - Schema ID is passed in headers instead of payload. It can be less supported by some available tools. See Schema Registry comparison section for details.

Message Payload

By default, Nussknacker supports two combinations of schema type and payload type:

  • Avro schema + Avro payload (binary format)
  • JSON schema + JSON payload (human readable, text format)

Avro payloads are more concise, because messages contain only values and schema id - without information about message structure like field names.

Avro payload is compatible with standard Kafka serializers and deserializers delivered by Schema Registry providers. Thanks to that you should be able to send messages to Nussknacker and read messages produced by Nussknacker using standard tooling available around those Schema Registries. To see how those formats are different, take a look at Schema Registry comparison section

For some situations it might be helpful to use JSON payload with Avro schema. Especially when your Schema Registry doesn't support JSON schemas. You can do that by enabling avroAsJsonSerialization configuration setting.

Schema ID

Each topic can contain messages written using different schema versions. Schema versions are identified by Schema ID. Nussknacker needs to know what was the schema used during writing to make message validation and schema evolution possible. Because of that Nussknacker needs to extract Schema ID from the message.

Additionally, in sources and sinks, you can choose which schema version should be used during reading/writing. Thanks to schema evolution mechanism, message in the original format will be evolved to desired format. This desired schema will be used in code completion and validation.

At runtime Nussknacker determines the schema version of a message value and key in the following way:

  1. It checks in key.schemaId, value.schemaId and Azure-specific content-type headers;
  2. If no such headers provided, it looks for the magic byte (0x00) and a schema id in the message, in a format used by Confluent;
  3. If the magic byte is not found, it assumes the schema version chosen by the user in the scenario.

Schema Registry comparison

Below you can find a quick comparison of how given schema registry types are handled:

Schema registry typeWhat is used for association
between schema with topic
ConventionThe way how schema id is passed in messagePayload content
ConfluentSubjectsSubject = <topic-name>-(key or value)For Avro: in payload in format: 0x00, 4 bytes schema id, Avro payload0x00, 4 bytes schema id, Avro payload
For JSON: in key.schemaId or value.schemaId headersJSON payload
AzureSchema namesSchema name = <CamelCasedTopicName>(Key or Value)For Avro: In header: content-type: avro/binary+schemaIdAvro payload
For JSON: in key.schemaId or value.schemaId headers
(only when avroAsJsonSerialization option enabled)
JSON payload

Configuration details

Common part

The Kafka configuration is part of the Model configuration. All the settings below should be placed relative to scenarioTypes.ScenarioTypeName.modelConfig key. You can find the high level structure of the configuration file here

Both streaming Engines (Lite and Flink) share some common Kafka settings this section describes them, see respective sections below for details on configuring Kafka for particular Engine (e.g. the keys where the common settings should be placed at).

Available configuration options

Important thing to remember is that Kafka server addresses/Schema Registry addresses have to be resolvable from:

  • Nussknacker Designer host (to enable schema discovery and scenario testing)
  • Lite/Flink engine - to be able to run job
NameImportanceTypeDefault valueDescription
kafkaProperties."bootstrap.servers"HighstringComma separated list of bootstrap servers
kafkaProperties."schema.registry.url"HighstringComma separated list of schema registry urls
kafkaProperties."basic.auth.credentials.source"Highstring(Confluent-only) Source of credential e.g. USER_INFO
kafkaProperties."basic.auth.user.info"Highstring(Confluent-only) User and password e.g. some_user:some_password
kafkaProperties."schema.group"Highstring(Azure-only) Schema group with all available schemas
kafkaProperties."azure.tenant.id"Highstring(Azure-only) Azure's tenant id
kafkaProperties."azure.client.id"Highstring(Azure-only) Azure's client id
kafkaProperties."azure.client.secret"Highstring(Azure-only) Azure's client secret
kafkaPropertiesMediummapAdditional configuration of producers or consumers
useStringForKeyMediumbooleantrueKafka message keys will be in the string format (not in Avro)
kafkaEspProperties.forceLatestReadMediumbooleanfalseIf scenario is restarted, should offsets of source consumers be reset to latest (can be useful in test enrivonments)
useNamingStrategyForConsumerGroupIdMediumbooleantrueUse namespaced consumer group id if namespace is configured
topicsExistenceValidationConfig.enabledLowbooleanfalseDetermine if existence of topics should be validated if no auto.create.topics.enable is false on Kafka cluster - note, that it may require permissions to access Kafka cluster settings
topicsExistenceValidationConfig.validatorConfig.autoCreateFlagFetchCacheTtlLowduration5 minutesTTL for checking Kafka cluster settings
topicsExistenceValidationConfig.validatorConfig.topicsFetchCacheTtlLowduration30 secondsTTL for caching list of existing topics
topicsExistenceValidationConfig.validatorConfig.adminClientTimeoutLowduration500 millisecondsTimeout for communicating with Kafka cluster
schemaRegistryCacheConfig.availableSchemasExpirationTimeLowduration10 secondsHow often available schemas cache will be invalidated. This determines the maximum time you'll have to wait after adding new schema or new schema version until it will be available in Designer
schemaRegistryCacheConfig.parsedSchemaAccessExpirationTimeLowduration2 hoursHow long parsed schema will be cached after first access to it
schemaRegistryCacheConfig.maximumSizeLownumber10000Maximum entries size for each caches: available schemas cache and parsed schema cache
avroAsJsonSerializationLowbooleanfalseSend and receive json messages described using Avro schema

Exception handling

Errors can be sent to specified Kafka topic in following json format (see below for format configuration options):

{
"processName" : "Premium Customer Scenario",
"nodeId" : "filter premium customers",
"message" : "Unknown exception",
"exceptionInput" : "SpelExpressionEvaluationException:Expression [1/0 != 10] evaluation failed, message: / by zero",
"inputEvent" : "{ \" field1\": \"vaulue1\" }",
"stackTrace" : "pl.touk.nussknacker.engine.api.exception.NonTransientException: mess\n\tat pl.touk.nussknacker.engine.kafka.exception.KafkaExceptionConsumerSerializationSpec.<init>(KafkaExceptionConsumerSerializationSpec.scala:24)\n\tat java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)\n\tat java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:62)\n\tat java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)\n\tat java.base/java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:490)\n\tat java.base/java.lang.Class.newInstance(Class.java:584)\n\tat org.scalatest.tools.Runner$.genSuiteConfig(Runner.scala:1431)\n\tat org.scalatest.tools.Runner$.$anonfun$doRunRunRunDaDoRunRun$8(Runner.scala:1239)\n\tat scala.collection.immutable.List.map(List.scala:286)\n\tat org.scalatest.tools.Runner$.doRunRunRunDaDoRunRun(Runner.scala:1238)\n\tat org.scalatest.tools.Runner$.$anonfun$runOptionallyWithPassFailReporter$24(Runner.scala:1033)\n\tat org.scalatest.tools.Runner$.$anonfun$runOptionallyWithPassFailReporter$24$adapted(Runner.scala:1011)\n\tat org.scalatest.tools.Runner$.withClassLoaderAndDispatchReporter(Runner.scala:1509)\n\tat org.scalatest.tools.Runner$.runOptionallyWithPassFailReporter(Runner.scala:1011)\n\tat org.scalatest.tools.Runner$.run(Runner.scala:850)\n\tat org.scalatest.tools.Runner.run(Runner.scala)\n\tat org.jetbrains.plugins.scala.testingSupport.scalaTest.ScalaTestRunner.runScalaTest2or3(ScalaTestRunner.java:38)\n\tat org.jetbrains.plugins.scala.testingSupport.scalaTest.ScalaTestRunner.main(ScalaTestRunner.java:25)",
"timestamp" : 1623758738000,
"host" : "teriberka.pl",
"additionalData" : {
"scenarioCategory" : "Marketing"
}
}

Following properties can be configured (please look at correct engine page : Lite or Flink, to see where they should be set):

NameDefault valueDescription
topic-Topic where errors will be sent. If the topic does not exist, it will be created (with default settings - for production deployments make sure the config is ok) during deploy. If (e.g. due to ACL settings) the topic cannot be created, the scenarios will fail, in that case, the topic has to be configured manually.
stackTraceLengthLimit50Limit of stacktrace length that will be sent (0 to omit stacktrace at all)
includeHosttrueShould name of host where error occurred (e.g. TaskManager in case of Flink) be included. Can be misleading if there are many network interfaces or hostname is improperly configured)
includeInputEventfalseShould input event be serialized (can be large or contain sensitive data so use with care)
useSharedProducerfalseFor better performance shared Kafka producer can be used (by default it's created and closed for each error), shared Producer is kind of experimental feature and should be used with care
additionalParams{}Map of fixed parameters that can be added to Kafka message

With Flink engine, the Kafka sources and sinks are configured as any other component. In particular, you can configure multiple Kafka component providers - e.g. when you want to connect to multiple clusters. Below we give two example configurations, one for default setup with one Kafka cluster and standard component names:

components.kafka {
config: {
kafkaProperties {
"bootstrap.servers": "kafakaBroker1.sample.pl:9092,kafkaBroker2.sample.pl:9092"
"schema.registry.url": "http://schemaRegistry.pl:8081"
}
}
}

And now - more complex, with two clusters. In the latter case, we configure prefix which will be added to component names, resulting in clusterA-kafka-avro etc.

components.kafkaA {
providerType: "kafka"
componentPrefix: "clusterA-"
config: {
kafkaProperties {
"bootstrap.servers": "clusterA-broker1.sample.pl:9092,clusterA-broker2.sample.pl:9092"
"schema.registry.url": "http://clusterA-schemaRegistry.pl:8081"
}
}
}
components.kafkaB {
providerType: "kafka"
componentPrefix: "clusterB-"
config: {
kafkaProperties {
"bootstrap.servers": "clusterB-broker1.sample.pl:9092,clusterB-broker2.sample.pl:9092"
"schema.registry.url": "http://clusterB-schemaRegistry.pl:8081"
}
}
}

Important thing to remember is that Kafka server addresses/schema registry addresses have to be resolvable from:

  • Nussknacker Designer host (to enable schema discovery and scenario testing)
  • Flink cluster (both jobmanagers and taskmanagers) hosts - to be able to run job

See common config for the details of Kafka configuration, the table below presents additional options available only in Flink engine:

NameImportanceTypeDefault valueDescription
kafkaEspProperties.defaultMaxOutOfOrdernessMillisMediumduration60sConfiguration of bounded of orderness watermark generator used by Kafka sources
consumerGroupNamingStrategyLowprocessId/processId-nodeIdprocessId-nodeIdHow consumer groups for sources should be named
avroKryoGenericRecordSchemaIdSerializationLowbooleantrueShould Avro messages from topics registered in schema registry be serialized in optimized way, by serializing only schema id, not the whole schema

Configuration for Lite engine

The Lite engine in Streaming processing mode uses Kafka as it's core part (e.g. delivery guarantees are based on Kafka transactions), so it's configured separately from other components. Therefore, it's only possible to use one Kafka cluster for one model configuration. This configuration is used for all Kafka based sources and sinks (you don't need to configure them separately). See common config for the details.

modelConfig {
kafka {
kafkaProperties {
"bootstrap.servers": "broker1:9092,broker2:9092"
"schema.registry.url": "http://schemaregistry:8081"
}
}
}