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Apache Kafka in Docker Container and Implement Its Functionalities with Python

Apache Kafka is an open-source distributed event streaming platform used by thousands of companies. Here's how to use Apache Kafka with python.

By 
Fahad Ahammed user avatar
Fahad Ahammed
·
Mar. 25, 22 · Tutorial
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According to the website, Apache Kafka is an open-source distributed event streaming platform used by thousands of companies for high-performance data pipelines, streaming analytics, data integration, and mission-critical applications.

In this post, I am going to share a basic way to start using Apache Kafka with python.

What Are the Tools Needed?

  • docker-compose

Docker compose will be used to run kafka and its dependencies.

  1. zookeeper
  2. kafka
  3. kafka-ui

The compose file:

YAML
 
version: "2"

services:

  zookeeper:

    container_name: zookeeper

    image: docker.io/bitnami/zookeeper:3.7

    ports:

      - "2181:2181"

    volumes:

      - "zookeeper_data:/bitnami"

    environment:

      - ALLOW_ANONYMOUS_LOGIN=yes



  kafka:

    container_name: kafka

    image: docker.io/bitnami/kafka:2

    ports:

      - "9092:9092"

      - "9093:9093"

    volumes:

      - "kafka_data:/bitnami"

    environment:

      - ALLOW_PLAINTEXT_LISTENER=yes

      - KAFKA_CFG_ZOOKEEPER_CONNECT=zookeeper:2181

      - KAFKA_CFG_LISTENER_SECURITY_PROTOCOL_MAP=CLIENT:PLAINTEXT,EXTERNAL:PLAINTEXT

      - KAFKA_CFG_LISTENERS=CLIENT://:9092,EXTERNAL://:9093

      - KAFKA_CFG_ADVERTISED_LISTENERS=CLIENT://kafka:9092,EXTERNAL://localhost:9093

      - KAFKA_INTER_BROKER_LISTENER_NAME=CLIENT

    depends_on:

      - zookeeper



  kafka-ui:

    image: provectuslabs/kafka-ui

    container_name: kafka-ui

    ports:

      - "18080:8080"

    restart: always

    environment:

      - KAFKA_CLUSTERS_0_NAME=local

      - KAFKA_CLUSTERS_0_BOOTSTRAPSERVERS=kafka:9092

      - KAFKA_CLUSTERS_0_ZOOKEEPER=zookeeper:2181

    depends_on:

      - kafka

      - zookeeper



volumes:

  zookeeper_data:

    driver: local

  kafka_data:

    driver: local

As you can see, I have used zookeeper and kafka images from bitnami. To get a generic view of kafka instance, I have used an open-source project from Github. The project is called kafka-ui which is managed by provectus. It is a web UI that can be accessed via hosts localhost with the port of 18080, as you can see from the compose file.

Let's say you want to produce some message and ship it to kafka.

Python
 
# kproducer.py

import datetime

from kafka import KafkaProducer

producer = KafkaProducer(bootstrap_servers='localhost:9093')

try:

    for _ in range(100):

        the_dt = str(datetime.datetime.utcnow())

        val = f"Count: {_} at {the_dt}".encode(encoding='utf8')

        producer.send(topic="KafkaExplored", value=val)

    producer.close()

except Exception as ex:

    print(ex)


For consuming:

Python
 
# kconsumer.py

from kafka import KafkaConsumer

consumer = KafkaConsumer('KafkaExplored', bootstrap_servers='localhost:9093')

for msg in consumer:

    topic = msg[0]

    value = msg[6]

    print(msg)

    print(f"{topic}:{value.decode()}")


There are several kafka clients for python, but I have used kafka-python

First, you want to kconsumer.py and then from another terminal you can run the kproduce.py to produce the message.

In kconsumer.py terminal, you will get the messages:

Shell
 
ConsumerRecord(topic='KafkaExplored', partition=0, offset=98, timestamp=1625160633441, timestamp_type=0, key=None, value=b'Count: 98 at 2021-07-01 17:30:33.441293', headers=[], checksum=None, serialized_key_size=-1, serialized_value_size=39, serialized_header_size=-1)

KafkaExplored:Count: 98 at 2021-07-01 17:30:33.441293

ConsumerRecord(topic='KafkaExplored', partition=0, offset=99, timestamp=1625160633441, timestamp_type=0, key=None, value=b'Count: 99 at 2021-07-01 17:30:33.441448', headers=[], checksum=None, serialized_key_size=-1, serialized_value_size=39, serialized_header_size=-1)

KafkaExplored:Count: 99 at 2021-07-01 17:30:33.441448


If you want to explore the API for accessing kafka using this kafka-python, you can look into it here.

Published at DZone with permission of Fahad Ahammed. See the original article here.

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