How to Install Apache Kafka on Rocky Linux 10

Apache Kafka is an open-source stream processing and message broker software application that allows you to process data streams via a distributed streaming platform. It acts as a messaging system between the sender and the recipient. Apache Kafka is based on a distributed architecture, so it provides high fault tolerance and scalability capabilities. It was originally developed by LinkedIn, but now it is a project of Apache Software Foundation. Apache Kafka provides an interface to read and write data to Kafka clusters or to import and export data to and from third-party systems.

In this post, we will explain how to install Apache Kafka on Rocky Linux 10.

Step 1- Install Java

Apache Kafka is a Java-based application, so Java must be installed on your server. If not installed, you can install it using the following command:

dnf update -y
dnf install java-21-openjdk-devel -y

Once Java is installed, verify the Java installation using the following command:

java --version

You will get the Java version in the following output:

openjdk 21.0.8 2025-07-15 LTS
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (Red_Hat-21.0.8.0.9-1) (build 21.0.8+9-LTS)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (Red_Hat-21.0.8.0.9-1) (build 21.0.8+9-LTS, mixed mode, sharing)

Step 2 – Install Apache Kafka on Rocky Linux 10

First, go to the Apache official website and download the latest version of Apache Kafka using the wget command:

wget https://dlcdn.apache.org/kafka/4.1.0/kafka_2.13-4.1.0.tgz

Once the download is completed, extract the downloaded file using the following command:

tar -xvzf kafka_2.13-4.1.0.tgz

Once the downloaded file is extracted, move the extracted directory to /usr/local directory:

mv kafka_2.13-4.1.0 /usr/local/kafka

Once you are finished, you can proceed to the next step.

Step 3 – Configure Kafka

First, edit the Kafka server.properties file.

nano /usr/local/kafka/config/server.properties

Modify the following lines:

process.roles=broker,controller
node.id=1
controller.listener.names=CONTROLLER
listeners=PLAINTEXT://0.0.0.0:9092,CONTROLLER://0.0.0.0:9093
listener.security.protocol.map=CONTROLLER:PLAINTEXT,PLAINTEXT:PLAINTEXT
inter.broker.listener.name=PLAINTEXT
controller.quorum.voters=1@localhost:9093

log.dirs=/usr/local/kafka/data

Next, build the random uuid.

/usr/local/kafka/bin/kafka-storage.sh random-uuid

Output.

SSoviLO8RtmlnOyHEPOcMQ

Initialize the storage directory with that UUID.

/usr/local/kafka/bin/kafka-storage.sh format -t SSoviLO8RtmlnOyHEPOcMQ -c /usr/local/kafka/config/server.properties

Step 4 – Create Systemd Service File for Kafka

For the production environment, it is recommended to create a systemd service file to run both Zookeeper and Kafka in the background.

First, create a systemd service file for Kafka using the following command:

nano /etc/systemd/system/kafka.service

Add the following lines:

[Unit]
Description=Apache Kafka Server
Documentation=http://kafka.apache.org/documentation.html

[Service]
Type=simple
Environment="JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/jre-11-openjdk"
ExecStart=/usr/bin/bash /usr/local/kafka/bin/kafka-server-start.sh /usr/local/kafka/config/server.properties
ExecStop=/usr/bin/bash /usr/local/kafka/bin/kafka-server-stop.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save and close the file, then reload the systemd daemon with the following command:

systemctl daemon-reload

Next, start both Zookeeper and Kafka services and enable them to start at system reboot:

systemctl start zookeeper
systemctl start kafka
systemctl enable zookeeper
systemctl enable kafka

You can also check Kafka using the following command:

systemctl status kafka

You will get the following output:

● kafka.service - Apache Kafka Server
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/kafka.service; disabled; preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sun 2025-10-19 01:56:50 EDT; 3s ago
 Invocation: 0fcfe3b308ce4be3b9a8ae56328e5e9a
       Docs: http://kafka.apache.org/documentation.html
   Main PID: 15974 (java)
      Tasks: 48 (limit: 24809)
     Memory: 218.5M (peak: 218.9M)
        CPU: 4.866s
     CGroup: /system.slice/kafka.service
             └─15974 /usr/lib/jvm/jre-21-openjdk/bin/java -Xmx1G -Xms1G -server -XX:+UseG1GC -XX:MaxGCPauseMillis=20 -XX:InitiatingHeapOccupancyPercent=35 -XX:+ExplicitGCInvokesConcur>

Step 5 – Create a Topic on Kafka

To test Apache Kafka, you will need to create at least one topic on the server.

Change the directory to Apache Kafka and create a test topic named topic1 with the following command:

cd /usr/local/kafka/
bin/kafka-topics.sh --create --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 --replication-factor 1 --partitions 1 --topic topic1

You can now verify your created topic using the following command:

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

You will get the following output:

topic1

Kafka provides two APIs: Producer and Consumer. The Producer is responsible for creating events and the Consumer displays them on the screen:

First, run the following command to create an event named event1 using the following command:

bin/kafka-console-producer.sh --broker-list localhost:9092 --topic event1

Type some text that you want to stream and display on the Consumer.

>Hi, this is my first event

Sample output:

[2025-10-22 07:58:05,318] WARN [Producer clientId=console-producer] Error while fetching metadata with correlation id 3 : {event1=LEADER_NOT_AVAILABLE} (org.apache.kafka.clients.NetworkClient)

Open another terminal and run the following command to display the generated event data in real-time:

bin/kafka-console-consumer.sh --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 --topic event1 --from-beginning

You will get the following output:

Hi, this is my first event

Conclusion

In the above guide, you learned how to install Apache Kafka on Rocky Linux 10. For more information, you can visit the Apache Kafka documentation page. Get started with Apache Kafka on VPS hosting from Atlantic.Net!