How to Install Apache Kafka on Linux?

How to start and run Kafka on Linux

Install Kafka with Zookeeper

For maximum compatibility purposes, it is recommended to start Apache Kafka with Zookeeper. If you would like to run Kafka without Zookeeper, take a look here.

How to install Kafka with Zookeeper on Linux

Install Java JDK version 11
Download Apache Kafka from https://kafka.apache.org/downloads under Binary Downloads
Extract the contents on Linux
Start Zookeeper using the binaries
Start Kafka using the binaries in another process
Setup the $PATH environment variables for easy access to the Kafka binaries

Installing Java JDK 11

To install Apache Kafka on Linux, Java 11 is the only prerequisite.

Navigate to Amazon Corretto 11 Linux install page and follow the steps, which work for Debian, RPM, Alpine and Amazon Linux. Alternatively, you can download from the Amazon Corretto 11 download page and install the correct package for your Linux distribution (x64, aarch64, x86, arch32, etc...).
For example on Ubuntu (Debian-based systems)

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wget -O- https://apt.corretto.aws/corretto.key | sudo apt-key add - 
sudo add-apt-repository 'deb https://apt.corretto.aws stable main'
sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install -y java-11-amazon-corretto-jdk

Please follow the instructions here to verify your installation of Amazon Corretto 11 and set the JDK as your default Java in your Linux system.

Upon completion, you should get a similar output when doing java -version:

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openjdk version "11.0.10" 2021-01-19 LTS
OpenJDK Runtime Environment Corretto-11.0.10.9.1 (build 11.0.10+9-LTS)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM Corretto-11.0.10.9.1 (build 11.0.10+9-LTS, mixed mode)shell

Install Apache Kafka

1. Download the latest version of Apache Kafka from https://kafka.apache.org/downloads under Binary downloads.

The download page for Apache Kafka where you can download and install Kafka.

2. Click on any of the binary downloads (it is preferred to choose the most recent Scala version - example 2.13). For this illustration, we will assume version 2.13-3.0.0.

Alternatively you can run a wget command

wget https://archive.apache.org/dist/kafka/3.0.0/kafka_2.13-3.0.0.tgz

3. Download and extract the contents to a directory of your choice, for example ~/kafka_2.13-3.0.0 .

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tar xzf kafka_2.13-3.0.0.tgz
mv kafka_2.13-3.0.0 ~

4. Open a Shell and navigate to the root directory of Apache Kafka. For this example, we will assume that the Kafka download is expanded into the ~/kafka_2.13-3.0.0 directory.

Start Zookeeper

Apache Kafka depends on Zookeeper for cluster management. Hence, prior to starting Kafka, Zookeeper has to be started. There is no need to explicitly install Zookeeper, as it comes included with Apache Kafka.

Make sure your JAVA_HOME environment variable is set first, as instructed in the Install Java section, so that Java 11 is used when doing java -version

From the root of Apache Kafka, run the following command to start Zookeeper:

~/kafka_2.13-3.0.0/bin/zookeeper-server-start.sh ~/kafka_2.13-3.0.0/config/zookeeper.properties

Screenshot showing the process for launching Zookeeper for Kafka on Linux

Daemon Mode

You can use the -daemon flag to run Zookeeper in daemon mode in the background

Start Apache Kafka

Open another Shell window and run the following command from the root of Apache Kafka to start Apache Kafka.

~/kafka_2.13-3.0.0/bin/kafka-server-start.sh ~/kafka_2.13-3.0.0/config/server.properties

Screenshot showing Kafka launching on Linux

Ensure to keep both shell windows opened, otherwise you will shut down Kafka or Zookeeper.

Kafka is now started, congratulations!

Setup the $PATH environment variable

In order to easily access the Kafka binaries, you can edit your PATH variable by adding the following line to your system run commands (for example ~/.zshrc if you use zshrc or ~/.bashrc for Bash ):

PATH="$PATH:~/kafka_2.13-3.0.0/bin"

This ensures that you can now run the kafka commands without prefixing them.

After reloading your shell, the following should work from any directory

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This ensures that you can now run the kafka commands without prefixing them. 
After reloading your shell, the following should work from any directory

Optional: Changing the Kafka and Zookeeper data storage directory

For Zookeeper:

edit the zookeeper.properties file at ~/kafka_2.13-3.0.0/config/zookeeper.properties and set the following to your heart's desire dataDir=/your/path/to/data/zookeeper
start Zookeeper using the update zookeeper.properties file as shown above
you can also make a copy of the zookeeper.properties file anywhere in your computer and edit that file instead, and reference it in the Zookeeper start command shown above

For Kafka:

edit the server.properties file at ~/kafka_2.13-3.0.0/config/server.properties and set the following to your heart's desire log.dirs=/your/path/to/data/kafka
start Zookeeper using the update server.properties file as shown above
you can also make a copy of the server.properties file anywhere in your computer and edit that file instead, and reference it in the Zookeeper start command shown above

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