Redpanda Self-hosted Quickstart

Learn how to quickly start working with a cluster in self-hosted Redpanda.

Redpanda in Docker is supported only for development and testing. To deploy self-hosted Redpanda in production, use one of the following environments:

Prerequisites

You need Docker Compose. For installation instructions, see the Docker Compose documentation.

To check if you have Docker Compose installed, run:

docker compose version

You should see the version of Docker Compose that’s installed on your local machine.

Deploy Redpanda

For lightweight testing, you can start a single Redpanda broker, or you can use a more robust example with three Redpanda brokers. With three brokers, you can configure your topics with a replication factor of three so that the cluster can recover from a single-broker failure.

  • Single Broker

  • Three Brokers

  1. Download the following docker-compose.yml file on your local file system.

    Reveal the YAML content
    docker-compose.yml
    version: "3.7"
    name: redpanda-quickstart-one-broker
    networks:
      redpanda_network:
        driver: bridge
    volumes:
      redpanda-0: null
    services:
      redpanda-0:
        command:
          - redpanda
          - start
          - --kafka-addr internal://0.0.0.0:9092,external://0.0.0.0:19092
          # Address the broker advertises to clients that connect to the Kafka API.
          # Use the internal addresses to connect to the Redpanda brokers'
          # from inside the same Docker network.
          # Use the external addresses to connect to the Redpanda brokers'
          # from outside the Docker network.
          - --advertise-kafka-addr internal://redpanda-0:9092,external://localhost:19092
          - --pandaproxy-addr internal://0.0.0.0:8082,external://0.0.0.0:18082
          # Address the broker advertises to clients that connect to the HTTP Proxy.
          - --advertise-pandaproxy-addr internal://redpanda-0:8082,external://localhost:18082
          - --schema-registry-addr internal://0.0.0.0:8081,external://0.0.0.0:18081
          # Redpanda brokers use the RPC API to communicate with each other internally.
          - --rpc-addr redpanda-0:33145
          - --advertise-rpc-addr redpanda-0:33145
          # Mode dev-container uses well-known configuration properties for development in containers.
          - --mode dev-container
          # Tells Seastar (the framework Redpanda uses under the hood) to use 1 core on the system.
          - --smp 1
          - --default-log-level=info
        image: docker.redpanda.com/redpandadata/redpanda:v23.3.9
        container_name: redpanda-0
        volumes:
          - redpanda-0:/var/lib/redpanda/data
        networks:
          - redpanda_network
        ports:
          - 18081:18081
          - 18082:18082
          - 19092:19092
          - 19644:9644
      console:
        container_name: redpanda-console
        image: docker.redpanda.com/redpandadata/console:v2.4.5
        networks:
          - redpanda_network
        entrypoint: /bin/sh
        command: -c 'echo "$$CONSOLE_CONFIG_FILE" > /tmp/config.yml; /app/console'
        environment:
          CONFIG_FILEPATH: /tmp/config.yml
          CONSOLE_CONFIG_FILE: |
            kafka:
              brokers: ["redpanda-0:9092"]
              schemaRegistry:
                enabled: true
                urls: ["http://redpanda-0:8081"]
            redpanda:
              adminApi:
                enabled: true
                urls: ["http://redpanda-0:9644"]
        ports:
          - 8080:8080
        depends_on:
          - redpanda-0
  2. Run the following in the directory where you saved the docker-compose.yml file:

    docker compose up -d
    [+] Running 4/4
    ⠿ Network redpanda_network                 Created  0.0s
    ⠿ Volume "redpanda-quickstart_redpanda-0"  Created  0.0s
    ⠿ Container redpanda-0                     Started  0.3s
    ⠿ Container redpanda-console               Started  0.6s
  1. Download the following docker-compose.yml file on your local file system.

    Reveal the YAML content
    docker-compose.yml
    version: "3.7"
    networks:
      redpanda_network:
        driver: bridge
    volumes:
      redpanda-0: null
      redpanda-1: null
      redpanda-2: null
    services:
      redpanda-0:
        command:
          - redpanda
          - start
          - --kafka-addr internal://0.0.0.0:9092,external://0.0.0.0:19092
          # Address the broker advertises to clients that connect to the Kafka API.
          # Use the internal addresses to connect to the Redpanda brokers'
          # from inside the same Docker network.
          # Use the external addresses to connect to the Redpanda brokers'
          # from outside the Docker network.
          - --advertise-kafka-addr internal://redpanda-0:9092,external://localhost:19092
          - --pandaproxy-addr internal://0.0.0.0:8082,external://0.0.0.0:18082
          # Address the broker advertises to clients that connect to the HTTP Proxy.
          - --advertise-pandaproxy-addr internal://redpanda-0:8082,external://localhost:18082
          - --schema-registry-addr internal://0.0.0.0:8081,external://0.0.0.0:18081
          # Redpanda brokers use the RPC API to communicate with each other internally.
          - --rpc-addr redpanda-0:33145
          - --advertise-rpc-addr redpanda-0:33145
          # Mode dev-container uses well-known configuration properties for development in containers.
          - --mode dev-container
          # Tells Seastar (the framework Redpanda uses under the hood) to use 1 core on the system.
          - --smp 1
          - --default-log-level=info
        image: docker.redpanda.com/redpandadata/redpanda:v23.3.9
        container_name: redpanda-0
        volumes:
          - redpanda-0:/var/lib/redpanda/data
        networks:
          - redpanda_network
        ports:
          - 18081:18081
          - 18082:18082
          - 19092:19092
          - 19644:9644
      redpanda-1:
        command:
          - redpanda
          - start
          - --kafka-addr internal://0.0.0.0:9092,external://0.0.0.0:29092
          - --advertise-kafka-addr internal://redpanda-1:9092,external://localhost:29092
          - --pandaproxy-addr internal://0.0.0.0:8082,external://0.0.0.0:28082
          - --advertise-pandaproxy-addr internal://redpanda-1:8082,external://localhost:28082
          - --schema-registry-addr internal://0.0.0.0:8081,external://0.0.0.0:28081
          - --rpc-addr redpanda-1:33145
          - --advertise-rpc-addr redpanda-1:33145
          - --mode dev-container
          - --smp 1
          - --default-log-level=info
          - --seeds redpanda-0:33145
        image: docker.redpanda.com/redpandadata/redpanda:v23.3.9
        container_name: redpanda-1
        volumes:
          - redpanda-1:/var/lib/redpanda/data
        networks:
          - redpanda_network
        ports:
          - 28081:28081
          - 28082:28082
          - 29092:29092
          - 29644:9644
        depends_on:
          - redpanda-0
      redpanda-2:
        command:
          - redpanda
          - start
          - --kafka-addr internal://0.0.0.0:9092,external://0.0.0.0:39092
          - --advertise-kafka-addr internal://redpanda-2:9092,external://localhost:39092
          - --pandaproxy-addr internal://0.0.0.0:8082,external://0.0.0.0:38082
          - --advertise-pandaproxy-addr internal://redpanda-2:8082,external://localhost:38082
          - --schema-registry-addr internal://0.0.0.0:8081,external://0.0.0.0:38081
          - --rpc-addr redpanda-2:33145
          - --advertise-rpc-addr redpanda-2:33145
          - --mode dev-container
          - --smp 1
          - --default-log-level=info
          - --seeds redpanda-0:33145
        image: docker.redpanda.com/redpandadata/redpanda:v23.3.9
        container_name: redpanda-2
        volumes:
          - redpanda-2:/var/lib/redpanda/data
        networks:
          - redpanda_network
        ports:
          - 38081:38081
          - 38082:38082
          - 39092:39092
          - 39644:9644
        depends_on:
          - redpanda-0
      console:
        container_name: redpanda-console
        image: docker.redpanda.com/redpandadata/console:v2.4.5
        networks:
          - redpanda_network
        entrypoint: /bin/sh
        command: -c 'echo "$$CONSOLE_CONFIG_FILE" > /tmp/config.yml; /app/console'
        environment:
          CONFIG_FILEPATH: /tmp/config.yml
          CONSOLE_CONFIG_FILE: |
            kafka:
              brokers: ["redpanda-0:9092"]
              schemaRegistry:
                enabled: true
                urls: ["http://redpanda-0:8081"]
            redpanda:
              adminApi:
                enabled: true
                urls: ["http://redpanda-0:9644"]
        ports:
          - 8080:8080
        depends_on:
          - redpanda-0
  2. Run the following in the directory where you saved the docker-compose.yml file:

    docker compose up -d
    [+] Running 8/8
    ⠿ Network redpanda_network                  Created  0.0s
    ⠿ Volume "redpanda-quickstart_redpanda-0"   Created  0.0s
    ⠿ Volume "redpanda-quickstart_redpanda-1"   Created  0.0s
    ⠿ Volume "redpanda-quickstart_redpanda-2"   Created  0.0s
    ⠿ Container redpanda-0                      Started  0.3s
    ⠿ Container redpanda-console                Started  0.6s
    ⠿ Container redpanda-1                      Started  0.7s
    ⠿ Container redpanda-2                      Started  0.7s

Start streaming

To start building a basic streaming application, you can use the rpk command-line tool to create a topic, produce messages to it, and consume messages from it.

Each Redpanda broker comes preinstalled with rpk, so you can use it inside one of the Redpanda broker’s Docker containers, or you can install it on your local machine to test external connectivity. The docker-compose.yml file configured the containers to expose ports on your localhost, so you can communicate with the cluster outside the Docker network.

To use rpk inside the Redpanda broker’s Docker container:

  1. Get information about the cluster:

    docker exec -it redpanda-0 rpk cluster info
  2. Create a topic called chat-room:

    docker exec -it redpanda-0 rpk topic create chat-room

    Output:

    TOPIC       STATUS
    chat-room  OK
  3. Produce a message to the topic:

    docker exec -it redpanda-0 rpk topic produce chat-room
  4. Enter a message, then press Enter:

    Pandas are fabulous!

    Example output:

    Produced to partition 0 at offset 0 with timestamp 1663282629789.
  5. Press Ctrl+C to finish producing messages to the topic.

  6. Consume one message from the topic:

    docker exec -it redpanda-0 rpk topic consume chat-room --num 1

    Your message is displayed along with its metadata:

    {
      "topic": "chat-room",
      "value": "Pandas are fabulous!",
      "timestamp": 1663282629789,
      "partition": 0,
      "offset": 0
    }

To test external connectivity using your local machine:

  1. Install rpk on your local machine:

    The rpk binary is not supported on Windows.
    • Linux

    • macOS

    1. Download the rpk archive for Linux, and make sure the version matches your Redpanda version.

      • To download the latest version of rpk:

        curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/latest/download/rpk-linux-amd64.zip
      • To download a version other than the latest:

        curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/download/v<version>/rpk-linux-amd64.zip
    2. Ensure that you have the folder ~/.local/bin:

      mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
    3. Add it to your $PATH:

      export PATH="~/.local/bin:$PATH"
    4. Unzip the rpk files to your ~/.local/bin/ directory:

      unzip rpk-linux-amd64.zip -d ~/.local/bin/
    5. Run rpk version to display the version of the rpk binary:

      rpk version
      23.3.9 (rev f0a24fa)
    1. If you don’t have Homebrew installed, install it.

    2. Install rpk:

      brew install redpanda-data/tap/redpanda
    3. Run rpk version to display the version of the rpk binary:

      rpk version
      23.3.9 (rev f0a24fa)
      This method installs the latest version of rpk, which is supported only with the latest version of Redpanda.
  2. Get information about the cluster to test the connection:

    rpk cluster info -X brokers=127.0.0.1:19092
    The Redpanda broker returns a list of all broker addresses, so rpk can communicate with all brokers directly. Each broker returns its configured advertise-* address that matches the port to which the initial connection has been made.

Explore your topic

To explore your topic, you can use Redpanda Console, which you deployed in the docker-compose.yml file and is running locally on port 8080. Redpanda Console is a developer-friendly web UI for managing and debugging your Redpanda cluster and your applications.

  1. Open Redpanda Console in a web browser.

    An overview of the cluster status, cluster health, and broker details is displayed.

  2. Go to Topics > chat-room.

    The message that you produced to the topic is displayed along with some other details about the topic.

Customize the quickstart

If you want to configure Redpanda or Redpanda Console, you need to customize the example Docker Compose file.

Configure Redpanda in Docker

To configure the Redpanda services with node configuration properties, you can do the following:

  • Pass configuration properties to the --set option in the redpanda start command. For example:

    redpanda:
      command:
        - redpanda
        - start
        - --set pandaproxy_client.retries=6
  • Create a redpanda.yaml file and mount it to the /etc/redpanda/ directory on the redpanda containers. For example, if you create the redpanda.yaml file in a directory called redpanda-mounts, configure the following volume mounts:

    redpanda:
      volumes:
        - ./redpanda-mounts:/etc/redpanda/

Configure Redpanda Console in Docker

To configure the Redpanda Console service with configuration properties, you can do the following:

  • Use environment variables, for example:

    console:
      environment:
        KAFKA_RACKID: rack1
  • Create a redpanda-console-config.yaml file and mount it to the /etc/redpanda/ directory on the redpanda-console container. For example, if you create the redpanda-console-config.yaml file in a directory called console-mounts, configure the following volume mounts:

    console:
      volumes:
        - ./console-mounts:/etc/redpanda/

Clean up

If you don’t want to continue experimenting with your cluster, you can shut it down and delete the containers:

docker compose down

To delete the volumes along with all your cluster data:

docker compose down -v

Suggested reading

Explore the rpk commands that you used in this quickstart: