Kafka

gnmic supports exporting subscription updates to multiple Apache Kafka brokers/clusters simultaneously

Configuration sample#

A Kafka output can be defined using the below format in gnmic config file under outputs section:

outputs:
  output1:
    # required
    type: kafka 
    # kafka client name. 
    # if left empty, this field is populated with the output name used as output ID (output1 in this example).
    # the full name will be '$(name)-kafka-prod'.
    # If the flag --instance-name is not empty, the full name will be '$(instance-name)-$(name)-kafka-prod.
    # note that each kafka worker (producer) will get client name=$name-$index
    name: ""
    # Comma separated brokers addresses
    address: localhost:9092 
    # Kafka topic name
    topic: telemetry 
    # Kafka SASL configuration
    sasl:
      # SASL user name
      user:
      # SASL password
      password:
      # SASL mechanism: PLAIN, SCRAM-SHA-256, SCRAM-SHA-512 and OAUTHBEARER are supported
      mechanism:
      # token url for OAUTHBEARER SASL mechanism
      token-url:
    # Kafka TLS config
    tls:
      # path to certificate authority file, this will be used to verify the kafka server certificate
      ca-file:
      # path to client certificate file.
      cert-file: 
      # path to client key file.
      key-file:
      # boolean, controls whether a client verifies the server's certificate chain and host name
      # if set to true, the kafka client accepts any certificate presented by the server and any host name in that certificate
      skip-verify:
    # The total number of times to retry sending a message
    max-retry: 2 
    # Kafka connection timeout
    timeout: 5s 
    # Wait time to reestablish the kafka producer connection after a failure
    recovery-wait-time: 10s 
    # Exported msg format, json, protojson, prototext, proto, event
    format: event 
    # string, one of `overwrite`, `if-not-present`, ``
    # This field allows populating/changing the value of Prefix.Target in the received message.
    # if set to ``, nothing changes 
    # if set to `overwrite`, the target value is overwritten using the template configured under `target-template`
    # if set to `if-not-present`, the target value is populated only if it is empty, still using the `target-template`
    add-target: 
    # string, a GoTemplate that allows for the customization of the target field in Prefix.Target.
    # it applies only if the previous field `add-target` is not empty.
    # if left empty, it defaults to:
    # {{- if index . "subscription-target" -}}
    # {{ index . "subscription-target" }}
    # {{- else -}}
    # {{ index . "source" | host }}
    # {{- end -}}`
    # which will set the target to the value configured under `subscription.$subscription-name.target` if any,
    # otherwise it will set it to the target name stripped of the port number (if present)
    target-template:
    # string, a GoTemplate that is executed using the received gNMI message as input.
    # the template execution is the last step before the data is written to the file,
    # First the received message is formatted according to the `format` field above, then the `event-processors` are applied if any
    # then finally the msg-template is executed.
    msg-template:
    # boolean, if true the message timestamp is changed to current time
    override-timestamps: false
    # Number of kafka producers to be created 
    num-workers: 1 
    # (bool) enable debug
    debug: false 
    # (int) number of messages to buffer before being picked up by the workers
    buffer-size: 0 
    # (bool) enables the collection and export (via prometheus) of output specific metrics
    enable-metrics: false 
    # list of processors to apply on the message before writing
    event-processors:

Currently all subscriptions updates (all targets and all subscriptions) are published to the defined topic name

Kafka Security protocol#

Kafka clients can operate with 4 security protocols, their configuration is controlled via both .tls and .sasl fields under the output config.

Security Protocol	Description	Configuration
`PLAINTEXT`	Un-authenticated, non-encrypted channel	`.tls` and `.sasl` are NOT present
`SASL_PLAINTEXT`	SASL authenticated, non-encrypted channel	only `.sasl` is present
`SASL_SSL`	SASL authenticated, SSL channel	both `.tls` and `.sasl` are present
`SSL`	SSL channel	only `.tls` is present

Security Configuration Examples#

PLAINTEXT

outputs:
  output1:
    type: kafka
    topic: my_kafka_topic
    # other fields
    # no tls and no sasl fields

SASL_PLAINTEXT

outputs:
  output1:
    type: kafka
    topic: my_kafka_topic
    sasl:
      user: admin
      password: secret
    # other fields
    # no tls field

SASL_SSL

Example1: Without server certificate verification

outputs:
  output1:
    type: kafka
    topic: my_kafka_topic
    sasl:
      user: admin
      password: secret
    tls:
      skip-verify: true
    # other fields
    # ...

Example2: With server certificate verification

outputs:
  output1:
    type: kafka
    topic: my_kafka_topic
    sasl:
      user: admin
      password: secret
    tls:
      ca-file: /path/to/ca-file
    # other fields
    # ...

Example3: With client certificates

outputs:
  output1:
    type: kafka
    topic: my_kafka_topic
    sasl:
      user: admin
      password: secret
    tls:
      cert-file: /path/to/cert-file
      key-file: /path/to/cert-file
    # other fields
    # ...

Example4: With both server certificate verification and client certificates

outputs:
  output1:
    type: kafka
    topic: my_kafka_topic
    sasl:
      user: admin
      password: secret
    tls:
      cert-file: /path/to/cert-file
      key-file: /path/to/cert-file
      ca-file: /path/to/ca-file
    # other fields
    # ...

SSL

Example1: Without server certificate verification

outputs:
  output1:
    type: kafka
    topic: my_kafka_topic
    tls:
      skip-verify: true
    # other fields
    # no sasl field

Example2: With server certificate verification

outputs:
  output1:
    type: kafka
    topic: my_kafka_topic
    tls:
      ca-file: /path/to/ca-file
    # other fields
    # no sasl field

Example3: With client certificates

outputs:
  output1:
    type: kafka
    topic: my_kafka_topic
    tls:
      cert-file: /path/to/cert-file
      key-file: /path/to/cert-file
    # other fields
    # no sasl field

Example4: With both server certificate verification and client certificates

outputs:
  output1:
    type: kafka
    topic: my_kafka_topic
    tls:
      cert-file: /path/to/cert-file
      key-file: /path/to/cert-file
      ca-file: /path/to/ca-file
    # other fields
    # no sasl field

Kafka Output Metrics#

When a Prometheus server is enabled, gnmic kafka output exposes 4 prometheus metrics, 3 Counters and 1 Gauge:

number_of_kafka_msgs_sent_success_total: Number of msgs successfully sent by gnmic kafka output. This Counter is labeled with the kafka producerID
number_of_written_kafka_bytes_total: Number of bytes written by gnmic kafka output. This Counter is labeled with the kafka producerID
number_of_kafka_msgs_sent_fail_total: Number of failed msgs sent by gnmic kafka output. This Counter is labeled with the kafka producerID as well as the failure reason
msg_send_duration_ns: gnmic kafka output send duration in nanoseconds. This Gauge is labeled with the kafka producerID