Apache Kafka

The Apache Kafka integration collects broker metrics, such as topic requests and failures. It also monitors the partitions on the broker. The integration collects Kafka logs and parses them into a JSON payload. The result includes fields for logger, level, and message.

For more information about Kafka, see the Apache Kafka documentation.

Prerequisites

To collect Kafka telemetry, you must install the Ops Agent:

  • For metrics, install version 2.10.0 or higher.
  • For logs, install version 2.10.0 or higher.

This integration supports Kafka versions 0.8 through 3.0.0.

Configure your Kafka instance

To expose a JMX endpoint, you must set the com.sun.management.jmxremote.port system property when starting the JVM. We also recommend setting the com.sun.management.jmxremote.rmi.port system property to the same port. To expose a JMX endpoint remotely, you must also set the java.rmi.server.hostname system property.

By default, these properties are set in a Kafka deployment's bin/kafka-run-class.sh file.

To set system properties by using command-line arguments, prepend the property name with -D when starting the JVM. For example, to set com.sun.management.jmxremote.port to port 9999, specify the following when starting the JVM:

-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=9999

Configure the Ops Agent for Kafka

Following the guide to Configure the Ops Agent, add the required elements to collect telemetry from Kafka instances, and restart the agent.

Example configuration

The following commands create the configuration to collect and ingest telemetry for Kafka and restart the Ops Agent.

# Configures Ops Agent to collect telemetry from the app and restart Ops Agent.

set -e

# Create a back up of the existing file so existing configurations are not lost.
sudo cp /etc/google-cloud-ops-agent/config.yaml /etc/google-cloud-ops-agent/config.yaml.bak

# Configure the Ops Agent.
sudo tee /etc/google-cloud-ops-agent/config.yaml > /dev/null << EOF
metrics:
  receivers:
    kafka:
      type: kafka
  service:
    pipelines:
      kafka:
        receivers:
          - kafka
logging:
  receivers:
    kafka:
      type: kafka
  service:
    pipelines:
      kafka:
        receivers:
          - kafka
EOF

sudo service google-cloud-ops-agent restart

Configure logs collection

To ingest logs from Kafka, you must create a receiver for the logs that Kafka produces and then create a pipeline for the new receiver.

To configure a receiver for your kafka logs, specify the following fields:

Field Default Description
exclude_paths A list of filesystem path patterns to exclude from the set matched by include_paths.
include_paths [/var/log/kafka/*.log] A list of filesystem paths to read by tailing each file. A wild card (*) can be used in the paths; for example, /var/log/kafka*/*.log.
record_log_file_path false If set to true, then the path to the specific file from which the log record was obtained appears in the output log entry as the value of the agent.googleapis.com/log_file_path label. When using a wildcard, only the path of the file from which the record was obtained is recorded.
type This value must be kafka.
wildcard_refresh_interval 60s The interval at which wildcard file paths in include_paths are refreshed. Given as a time duration, for example 30s or 2m. This property might be useful under high logging throughputs where log files are rotated faster than the default interval.

What is logged

The logName is derived from the receiver IDs specified in the configuration. Detailed fields inside the LogEntry are as follows.

The kafka logs contain the following fields in the LogEntry:

Field Type Description
jsonPayload.level string Log entry level
jsonPayload.logger string Name of the logger where the log originated.
jsonPayload.message string Log message, including detailed stacktrace where provided
jsonPayload.source string Module and/or thread where the log originated.
severity string (LogSeverity) Log entry level (translated).

Configure metrics collection

To ingest metrics from Kafka, you must create a receiver for the metrics that Kafka produces and then create a pipeline for the new receiver.

This receiver does not support the use of multiple instances in the configuration, for example, to monitor multiple endpoints. All such instances write to the same time series, and Cloud Monitoring has no way to distinguish among them.

To configure a receiver for your kafka metrics, specify the following fields:

Field Default Description
collect_jvm_metrics true Configures the receiver to also collect the supported JVM metrics.
collection_interval 60s A time duration value, such as 30s or 5m.
password The configured password if JMX is configured to require authentication.
stub_status_url localhost:9999 The JMX Service URL or host and port used to construct the service URL. This value must be in the form of service:jmx:<protocol>:<sap> or host:port. Values in host:port form are used to create a service URL of service:jmx:rmi:///jndi/rmi://<host>:<port>/jmxrmi.
type This value must be kafka.
username The configured username if JMX is configured to require authentication.

What is monitored

The following table provides the list of metrics that the Ops Agent collects from the Kafka instance.

Metric type 
Kind, Type
Monitored resources		 Labels
workload.googleapis.com/kafka.isr.operation.count
CUMULATIVE, INT64
gce_instance 		operation
workload.googleapis.com/kafka.message.count
CUMULATIVE, INT64
gce_instance 		 
workload.googleapis.com/kafka.network.io
CUMULATIVE, INT64
gce_instance 		state
workload.googleapis.com/kafka.partition.count
GAUGE, INT64
gce_instance 		 
workload.googleapis.com/kafka.partition.offline
GAUGE, INT64
gce_instance 		 
workload.googleapis.com/kafka.partition.under_replicated
GAUGE, INT64
gce_instance 		 
workload.googleapis.com/kafka.purgatory.size
GAUGE, INT64
gce_instance 		type
workload.googleapis.com/kafka.request.count
CUMULATIVE, INT64
gce_instance 		type
workload.googleapis.com/kafka.request.failed
CUMULATIVE, INT64
gce_instance 		type
workload.googleapis.com/kafka.request.time.total
CUMULATIVE, INT64
gce_instance 		type

Verify the configuration

This section describes how to verify that you correctly configured the Kafka receiver. It might take one or two minutes for the Ops Agent to begin collecting telemetry.

To verify that Kafka logs are being sent to Cloud Logging, do the following:

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Logs Explorer page:

    Go to Logs Explorer

    If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Logging.

  2. Enter the following query in the editor, and then click Run query: 
    resource.type="gce_instance"
log_id("kafka")

To verify that Kafka metrics are being sent to Cloud Monitoring, do the following:

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the  Metrics explorer page:

    Go to Metrics explorer

    If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Monitoring.

  2. In the toolbar of the query-builder pane, select the button whose name is either  MQL or  PromQL.
  3. Verify that MQL is selected in the Language toggle. The language toggle is in the same toolbar that lets you format your query.
  4. Enter the following query in the editor, and then click Run query: 
    fetch gce_instance
| metric 'workload.googleapis.com/kafka.message.count'
| every 1m

View dashboard

To view your Kafka metrics, you must have a chart or dashboard configured. The Kafka integration includes one or more dashboards for you. Any dashboards are automatically installed after you configure the integration and the Ops Agent has begun collecting metric data.

You can also view static previews of dashboards without installing the integration.

To view an installed dashboard, do the following:

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the  Dashboards page:

    Go to Dashboards

    If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Monitoring.

  2. Select the Dashboard List tab, and then choose the Integrations category.
  3. Click the name of the dashboard you want to view.

If you have configured an integration but the dashboard has not been installed, then check that the Ops Agent is running. When there is no metric data for a chart in the dashboard, installation of the dashboard fails. After the Ops Agent begins collecting metrics, the dashboard is installed for you.

To view a static preview of the dashboard, do the following:

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the  Integrations page:

    Go to Integrations

    If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Monitoring.

  2. Click the Compute Engine deployment-platform filter.
  3. Locate the entry for Kafka and click View Details.
  4. Select the Dashboards tab to see a static preview. If the dashboard is installed, then you can navigate to it by clicking View dashboard.

For more information about dashboards in Cloud Monitoring, see Dashboards and charts.

For more information about using the Integrations page, see Manage integrations.

Install alerting policies

Alerting policies instruct Cloud Monitoring to notify you when specified conditions occur. The Kafka integration includes one or more alerting policies for you to use. You can view and install these alerting policies from the Integrations page in Monitoring.

To view the descriptions of available alerting policies and install them, do the following:

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the  Integrations page:

    Go to Integrations

    If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Monitoring.

  2. Locate the entry for Kafka and click View Details.
  3. Select the Alerts tab. This tab provides descriptions of available alerting policies and provides an interface for installing them.
  4. Install alerting policies. Alerting policies need to know where to send notifications that the alert has been triggered, so they require information from you for installation. To install alerting policies, do the following:
    1. From the list of available alerting policies, select those that you want to install.

    2. In the Configure notifications section, select one or more notification channels. You have the option to disable the use of notification channels, but if you do, then your alerting policies fire silently. You can check their status in Monitoring, but you receive no notifications.

      For more information about notification channels, see Manage notification channels.

    3. Click Create Policies.

For more information about alerting policies in Cloud Monitoring, see Introduction to alerting.

For more information about using the Integrations page, see Manage integrations.

What's next

For a walkthrough on how to use Ansible to install the Ops Agent, configure a third-party application, and install a sample dashboard, see the Install the Ops Agent to troubleshoot third-party applications video.