Kafkatail

🚧 Work In Progress 🚧
🚧 Proceed with caution 🚧

Overview

CLI app to tail kafka logs on console from any topic having messages in any format: Plaintext, proto, ...

Contents

• Kafkatail
  • Overview
    • Installation
      • MacOS using homebrew
      • Linux using snap
      • Windows using scoop
      • Go Toolchain
      • Github Releases
    • QuickStart
    • Usage
    • Examples
    • Known Limitation
    • Development

Installation

Feel free to use any of the available methods

MacOS using homebrew

brew install handofgod94/tap/kafkatail

Linux using snap

# currently only available on beta and edge channels
sudo snap install kafkatail --beta
sudo snap install kafkatail --edge

Windows using scoop

scoop add handofgod94-bucket https://github.com/HandOfGod94/scoop-bucket.git
scoop install kafkatail

Go Toolchain

• For Go 1.16 or higher

  go install github.com/handofgod94/kafkatail@v0.2.0

• For go version <= 1.15

  GO111MODULE=on go get github.com/handofgod94/kafkatail@v0.2.0

  The go binary will be installed in $GOPATH/bin

Github Releases

• Download executable binaries from Release page

QuickStart

$ kafkatail --version

kafkatail version 0.2.0

Usage

$ kafkatail --help

Tail kafka messages from any topic, of any wire format on console (plaintext, protobuf)

Usage:
  kafkatail [flags] topic

Flags:
  -b, --bootstrap_servers bootstrap_servers   list of kafka bootstrap_servers separated by comma
      --from_datetime string                  tail from specific past datetime in RFC3339 format (default "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z")
      --group_id group_id                     [Optional] kafka consumer group_id to be used for subscribing to topic
  -h, --help                                  help for kafkatail
      --include_paths include_paths           include_paths containing dependencies of proto. Required for `wire_format=proto`
      --message_type type                     proto message type to use for decoding . Required for `wire_format=proto`
      --offset int                            kafka offset to start consuming from. Possible Values: -1=latest, -2=earliest, n=nth offset (default -1)
      --partition either[int, string]         kafka partition to consume from. Can be int(0,1,2,...) or "all" (default all)
      --proto_file proto_file                 proto_file to be used for decoding kafka message. Required for `wire_format=proto`
  -v, --version                               version for kafkatail
      --wire_format wire_format[=plaintext]   Wire format of messages in topic (default plaintext)

Examples

# tail messages from a topic
kafkatail --bootstrap_servers=localhost:9093 kafkatail-test

# tail proto messages from a topic
kafkatail --bootstrap_servers=localhost:9093 --wire_format=proto --proto_file=starwars.proto --include_paths="../testdata" --message_type=Human kafkatail-test-proto

# tail messages from an offset. Default: -1 (latest). For earliest, use offset=-2
kafkatail --bootstrap_servers=localhost:9093 --offset=12 kafkatail-test-base

# tail messages from specific time
kafkatail --bootstrap_servers=localhost:9093 --from_datetime=2021-06-28T15:04:23Z kafkatail-test-base

# tail messages from specific partition. Default: 0
kafkatail --bootstrap_servers=localhost:9093 --partition=5 kafkatail-test-base

# tail from multiple partitions, using group_id
kafkatail --bootstrap_servers=localhost:9093 --group_id=myfoo kafka-consume-gorup-id-int-test

# tail from multiple partitions WITHOUT group_id
kafkatail --bootstrap_servers=localhost:9093 --partition=all kafka-consume-gorup-id-int-test
# or simply
kafkatail --bootstrap_servers=localhost:9093 kafka-consume-gorup-id-int-test
	

Known Limitation

• --offset option doesn't work with --gorup_id
• No avro, thirft, <custom> decoding support yet.
  Only supports protobuf and plaintext for now

Development

• Minimum go version: 1.18
• Ruby version: 2.7.1 (for running cucumber-tests)

# to run dev checks and create binary
make

# to run test
make test

# to run integration tests
# it requires ruby to be installed
# download cucumber dependencies
make cucumber-setup

# run cucumber tests
make cucumber-test