Introduction

Apache Kafka is messaging engine that sends messages from producer to consumer, which is widely used in BigData projects. It is an open-source platform to stores real-time data streaming.

This article will explain how to install Apache Kafka on CentOS 7.

Prerequisites

A non-root user with sudo privileges.
OpenJDK is installed on your server.

Install OpenJDK Runtime

First, you need to install Java on your system to run Apache Kafka.
```
# sudo yum -y install java-1.8.0-openjdk
```
verify the Java-installed version.
```
# java -version
```

Download and install Apache Kafka

Install "wget" package.
```
# sudo yum -y install wget
```

Download the stable version of Apache Kafka from the official website.

# wget https://downloads.apache.org/kafka/3.4.0/kafka_2.13-3.4.0.tgz

Unzip the downloaded package and move the file to opt directory.

# tar -xzf kafka_2.13-3.4.0.tgz
# sudo mv kafka_2.13-3.4.0 /opt

Start and test Apache Kafka

Go to the Kafka directory.
```
# cd /opt/kafka_2.13-3.4.0
```

Start the Zookeeper, which comes built-in with the Kafka package.

# bin/zookeeper-server-start.sh -daemon config/zookeeper.properties

Start the Kafka server with its default properties.

# bin/kafka-server-start.sh -daemon config/server.properties

Create a sample topic using the following command.

# bin/kafka-topics.sh --create --topic idrive-compute --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 --replication-factor 1 --partitions 1

You can view your topics with the following command.

# bin/kafka-topics.sh --list --bootstrap-server localhost:9092