3. Introduction

This first part of the reference documentation is a high-level overview of Spring for Apache Kafka and the underlying concepts and some code snippets that will get you up and running as quickly as possible.

3.1 Quick Tour for the Impatient

3.1.1 Introduction

This is the 5 minute tour to get started with Spring Kafka.

Prerequisites: install and run Apache Kafka Then grab the spring-kafka JAR and all of its dependencies - the easiest way to do that is to declare a dependency in your build tool, e.g. for Maven:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.springframework.kafka</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-kafka</artifactId>
  <version>2.1.6.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>

And for Gradle:

compile 'org.springframework.kafka:spring-kafka:2.1.6.RELEASE'

Compatibility

  • Apache Kafka Clients 1.0.0
  • Spring Framework 5.0.x
  • Minimum Java version: 8

Very, Very Quick

Using plain Java to send and receive a message:

@Test
public void testAutoCommit() throws Exception {
    logger.info("Start auto");
    ContainerProperties containerProps = new ContainerProperties("topic1", "topic2");
    final CountDownLatch latch = new CountDownLatch(4);
    containerProps.setMessageListener(new MessageListener<Integer, String>() {

        @Override
        public void onMessage(ConsumerRecord<Integer, String> message) {
            logger.info("received: " + message);
            latch.countDown();
        }

    });
    KafkaMessageListenerContainer<Integer, String> container = createContainer(containerProps);
    container.setBeanName("testAuto");
    container.start();
    Thread.sleep(1000); // wait a bit for the container to start
    KafkaTemplate<Integer, String> template = createTemplate();
    template.setDefaultTopic(topic1);
    template.sendDefault(0, "foo");
    template.sendDefault(2, "bar");
    template.sendDefault(0, "baz");
    template.sendDefault(2, "qux");
    template.flush();
    assertTrue(latch.await(60, TimeUnit.SECONDS));
    container.stop();
    logger.info("Stop auto");

}
private KafkaMessageListenerContainer<Integer, String> createContainer(
                        ContainerProperties containerProps) {
    Map<String, Object> props = consumerProps();
    DefaultKafkaConsumerFactory<Integer, String> cf =
                            new DefaultKafkaConsumerFactory<Integer, String>(props);
    KafkaMessageListenerContainer<Integer, String> container =
                            new KafkaMessageListenerContainer<>(cf, containerProps);
    return container;
}

private KafkaTemplate<Integer, String> createTemplate() {
    Map<String, Object> senderProps = senderProps();
    ProducerFactory<Integer, String> pf =
              new DefaultKafkaProducerFactory<Integer, String>(senderProps);
    KafkaTemplate<Integer, String> template = new KafkaTemplate<>(pf);
    return template;
}

private Map<String, Object> consumerProps() {
    Map<String, Object> props = new HashMap<>();
    props.put(ConsumerConfig.BOOTSTRAP_SERVERS_CONFIG, "localhost:9092");
    props.put(ConsumerConfig.GROUP_ID_CONFIG, group);
    props.put(ConsumerConfig.ENABLE_AUTO_COMMIT_CONFIG, true);
    props.put(ConsumerConfig.AUTO_COMMIT_INTERVAL_MS_CONFIG, "100");
    props.put(ConsumerConfig.SESSION_TIMEOUT_MS_CONFIG, "15000");
    props.put(ConsumerConfig.KEY_DESERIALIZER_CLASS_CONFIG, IntegerDeserializer.class);
    props.put(ConsumerConfig.VALUE_DESERIALIZER_CLASS_CONFIG, StringDeserializer.class);
    return props;
}

private Map<String, Object> senderProps() {
    Map<String, Object> props = new HashMap<>();
    props.put(ProducerConfig.BOOTSTRAP_SERVERS_CONFIG, "localhost:9092");
    props.put(ProducerConfig.RETRIES_CONFIG, 0);
    props.put(ProducerConfig.BATCH_SIZE_CONFIG, 16384);
    props.put(ProducerConfig.LINGER_MS_CONFIG, 1);
    props.put(ProducerConfig.BUFFER_MEMORY_CONFIG, 33554432);
    props.put(ProducerConfig.KEY_SERIALIZER_CLASS_CONFIG, IntegerSerializer.class);
    props.put(ProducerConfig.VALUE_SERIALIZER_CLASS_CONFIG, StringSerializer.class);
    return props;
}

With Java Configuration

A similar example but with Spring configuration in Java:

@Autowired
private Listener listener;

@Autowired
private KafkaTemplate<Integer, String> template;

@Test
public void testSimple() throws Exception {
    template.send("annotated1", 0, "foo");
    template.flush();
    assertTrue(this.listener.latch1.await(10, TimeUnit.SECONDS));
}

@Configuration
@EnableKafka
public class Config {

    @Bean
    ConcurrentKafkaListenerContainerFactory<Integer, String>
                        kafkaListenerContainerFactory() {
        ConcurrentKafkaListenerContainerFactory<Integer, String> factory =
                                new ConcurrentKafkaListenerContainerFactory<>();
        factory.setConsumerFactory(consumerFactory());
        return factory;
    }

    @Bean
    public ConsumerFactory<Integer, String> consumerFactory() {
        return new DefaultKafkaConsumerFactory<>(consumerConfigs());
    }

    @Bean
    public Map<String, Object> consumerConfigs() {
        Map<String, Object> props = new HashMap<>();
        props.put(ConsumerConfig.BOOTSTRAP_SERVERS_CONFIG, embeddedKafka.getBrokersAsString());
        ...
        return props;
    }

    @Bean
    public Listener listener() {
        return new Listener();
    }

    @Bean
    public ProducerFactory<Integer, String> producerFactory() {
        return new DefaultKafkaProducerFactory<>(producerConfigs());
    }

    @Bean
    public Map<String, Object> producerConfigs() {
        Map<String, Object> props = new HashMap<>();
        props.put(ProducerConfig.BOOTSTRAP_SERVERS_CONFIG, embeddedKafka.getBrokersAsString());
        ...
        return props;
    }

    @Bean
    public KafkaTemplate<Integer, String> kafkaTemplate() {
        return new KafkaTemplate<Integer, String>(producerFactory());
    }

}
public class Listener {

    private final CountDownLatch latch1 = new CountDownLatch(1);

    @KafkaListener(id = "foo", topics = "annotated1")
    public void listen1(String foo) {
        this.latch1.countDown();
    }

}

Even Quicker, with Spring Boot

The following Spring Boot application sends 3 messages to a topic, receives them, and stops.

Application. 

@SpringBootApplication
public class Application implements CommandLineRunner {

    public static Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(Application.class);

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args).close();
    }

    @Autowired
    private KafkaTemplate<String, String> template;

    private final CountDownLatch latch = new CountDownLatch(3);

    @Override
    public void run(String... args) throws Exception {
        this.template.send("myTopic", "foo1");
        this.template.send("myTopic", "foo2");
        this.template.send("myTopic", "foo3");
        latch.await(60, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
        logger.info("All received");
    }

    @KafkaListener(topics = "myTopic")
    public void listen(ConsumerRecord<?, ?> cr) throws Exception {
        logger.info(cr.toString());
        latch.countDown();
    }

}

Boot takes care of most of the configuration; when using a local broker, the only properties we need are:

application.properties. 

spring.kafka.consumer.group-id=foo
spring.kafka.consumer.auto-offset-reset=earliest

The first because we are using group management to assign topic partitions to consumers so we need a group, the second to ensure the new consumer group will get the messages we just sent, because the container might start after the sends have completed.