Title: Installing Apache Kafka on Ubuntu: A Step-by-Step Guide

Introduction

Apache Kafka is a powerful distributed streaming platform for high-throughput, low-latency data pipelines. If you work with data-intensive applications, you’ll likely need Kafka in your toolkit. In this blog, we’ll discuss how to get Kafka up and running on your Ubuntu system.

Prerequisites

• A clean Ubuntu machine (This guide assumes Ubuntu 20.04 or similar)
• Java (Kafka is Java-based, so you’ll need Java 8 or later installed)
• Basic command-line familiarity

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Install Java (if not already installed)
2. Bash
3. sudo apt update
4. sudo apt install default-JDK 
5. Use code 
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7. Create a User for Kafka
8. Creating a dedicated user for Kafka is a security best practice:
9. Bash
10. sudo adduser Kafka
11. sudo usermod -aG sudo kafka
12. Use code 
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14. Download Apache Kafka

• • Visit the Apache Kafka downloads page: 
  • Select the latest stable release and the binary suitable for your Scala version.
• Download the .tgz file using wget or curl:
• Bash
• wget https://downloads.apache.org/kafka/3.7.0/kafka_2.13-3.7.0.tgz 
• Use code 
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1. Extract the Kafka Archive
2. Bash
3. tar -xzf kafka_2.13-3.7.0.tgz
4. sudo mv kafka_2.13-3.7.0 /usr/local/kafka 
5. Use code 
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7. Configure Kafka Server

• Navigate to Kafka’s configuration directory:
• Bash
• cd /usr/local/kafka/config 
• Use code.
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  • Edit the server.properties file (use your favorite text editor like Nano or Vim)
  • At a minimum, you should modify the listeners and zookeeper. Connect settings.

1. Set up Kafka as a Systemd Service
2. Create systemd service files for Zookeeper (which Kafka uses) and Kafka. (Refer to online resources for file contents if needed)
3. Start the Services
4. Bash
5. sudo systemctl start zookeeper
6. sudo systemctl start kafka
7. Use code
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9. Verify Installation
10. Bash
11. # Create a test topic
12. /usr/local/kafka/bin/Kafka-topics.sh –create –topic test-topic –bootstrap-server localhost:9092
13.  
14. # Send sample message
15. /usr/local/kafka/bin/kafka-console-producer.sh –topic test-topic –bootstrap-server localhost:9092
16.  
17. # Consume messages from topic
18. /usr/local/kafka/bin/Kafka-console-consumer.sh –topic test-topic –from-beginning –bootstrap-server localhost:9092
19. Use code
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Conclusion

There you have it! You now have a Kafka instance running on your Ubuntu machine. With the power of Kafka, you’re ready to build scalable, resilient data streaming applications.

Additional Notes:

• Consider security hardening to ensure proper authentication, authorization, and encryption.
• Apache Kafka has a vibrant community and excellent documentation if you want to explore further.