Get Started with Redpanda Connect using rpk

This guide explains how to get started with Redpanda Connect using rpk, the Redpanda command-line interface (CLI).

Install

The rpk CLI allows you to create and manage data pipelines with Redpanda Connect as well as interact with Redpanda clusters.

The rpk CLI also includes an rpk connect plugin, which manages installations and upgrades of Redpanda Connect. This plugin is automatically installed when you first run rpk connect commands, unless you run rpk connect --version, which prompts you to install the plugin.
Also interacting with a Redpanda cluster?

If you want to use rpk to also communicate with a Redpanda cluster, ensure the version of rpk that you install matches the version of Redpanda running in your cluster.

Linux

To install, or update to, the latest version of rpk for Linux, run:

  • amd64

  • arm64

curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/latest/download/rpk-linux-amd64.zip &&
  mkdir -p ~/.local/bin &&
  export PATH="~/.local/bin:$PATH" &&
  unzip rpk-linux-amd64.zip -d ~/.local/bin/
curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/latest/download/rpk-linux-arm64.zip &&
  mkdir -p ~/.local/bin &&
  export PATH="~/.local/bin:$PATH" &&
  unzip rpk-linux-arm64.zip -d ~/.local/bin/

To install, or update to, a version other than the latest, run:

  • amd64

  • arm64

curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/download/v<version>/rpk-linux-amd64.zip &&
  mkdir -p ~/.local/bin &&
  export PATH="~/.local/bin:$PATH" &&
  unzip rpk-linux-amd64.zip -d ~/.local/bin/
curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/download/v<version>/rpk-linux-arm64.zip &&
  mkdir -p ~/.local/bin &&
  export PATH="~/.local/bin:$PATH" &&
  unzip rpk-linux-arm64.zip -d ~/.local/bin/

MacOS

  • Homebrew

  • Manual Download

  1. If you don’t have Homebrew installed, install it.

  2. To install or update rpk, run:

    brew install redpanda-data/tap/redpanda
    This method installs the latest version of rpk, which is supported only with the latest version of Redpanda.

To install or update rpk through a manual download, choose the option for your system architecture. For example, if you have an M1 or newer chip, select Apple Silicon.

  • Intel macOS

  • Apple Silicon

To install, or update to, the latest version of rpk for Intel macOS, run:

curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/latest/download/rpk-darwin-amd64.zip &&
  mkdir -p ~/.local/bin &&
  export PATH="~/.local/bin:$PATH" &&
  unzip rpk-darwin-amd64.zip -d ~/.local/bin/

To install, or update to, a version other than the latest, run:

curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/download/v<version>/rpk-darwin-amd64.zip &&
  mkdir -p ~/.local/bin &&
  export PATH="~/.local/bin:$PATH" &&
  unzip rpk-darwin-amd64.zip -d ~/.local/bin/

To install, or update to, the latest version of rpk for Apple Silicon, run:

curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/latest/download/rpk-darwin-arm64.zip &&
  mkdir -p ~/.local/bin &&
  export PATH="~/.local/bin:$PATH" &&
  unzip rpk-darwin-arm64.zip -d ~/.local/bin/

To install, or update to, a version other than the latest, run:

curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/download/v<version>/rpk-darwin-arm64.zip &&
  mkdir -p ~/.local/bin &&
  export PATH="~/.local/bin:$PATH" &&
  unzip rpk-darwin-arm64.zip -d ~/.local/bin/

Docker

To use rpk in Docker, you can use the Redpanda Docker image, which includes both Redpanda and rpk as part of the installation.

docker pull docker.redpanda.com/redpandadata/connect

Run a pipeline

A Redpanda Connect stream pipeline is configured with a single config file, you can generate a fresh one with:

rpk connect create > connect.yaml
This command may take a few seconds to run. If this is the first rpk connect command you have run, the rpk connect plugin is automatically installed.

For Docker installations:

docker run --rm docker.redpanda.com/redpandadata/connect create > ./connect.yaml

The main sections that make up a config are input, pipeline and output. When you generate a fresh config it’ll simply pipe stdin to stdout like this:

input:
  stdin: {}

pipeline:
  processors: []

output:
  stdout: {}

Eventually we’ll want to configure a more useful input and output, but for now this is useful for quickly testing processors. You can execute this config with:

rpk connect run connect.yaml

For Docker installations:

docker run --rm -it -v $(pwd)/connect.yaml:/connect.yaml docker.redpanda.com/redpandadata/connect run

Anything you write to stdin will get written unchanged to stdout, cool! Resist the temptation to play with this for hours, there’s more stuff to try out.

Next, let’s add some processing steps in order to mutate messages. The most powerful one is the mapping processor which allows us to perform mappings, let’s add a mapping to uppercase our messages:

input:
  stdin: {}

pipeline:
  processors:
    - mapping: root = content().uppercase()

output:
  stdout: {}

Now your messages should come out in all caps.

You can add as many processing steps as you like, and since processors are what make Redpanda Connect powerful they are worth experimenting with. Let’s create a more advanced pipeline that works with JSON documents:

input:
  stdin: {}

pipeline:
  processors:
    - sleep:
        duration: 500ms
    - mapping: |
        root.doc = this
        root.first_name = this.names.index(0).uppercase()
        root.last_name = this.names.index(-1).hash("sha256").encode("base64")

output:
  stdout: {}

First, we sleep for 500 milliseconds just to keep the suspense going. Next, we restructure our input JSON document by nesting it within a field doc, we map the upper-cased first element of names to a new field first_name. Finally, we map the hashed and base64 encoded value of the last element of names to a new field last_name.

Try running that config with some sample documents:

echo '{"id":"1","names":["celine","dion"]}
{"id":"2","names":["chad","robert","kroeger"]}' | rpk connect run connect.yaml

For Docker installations:

echo '{"id":"1","names":["celine","dion"]}
{"id":"2","names":["chad","robert","kroeger"]}' | docker run --rm -i -v $(pwd)/connect.yaml:/connect.yaml docker.redpanda.com/redpandadata/connect run

You should see this output in the logs:

{"doc":{"id":"1","names":["celine","dion"]},"first_name":"CELINE","last_name":"1VvPgCW9sityz5XAMGdI2BTA7/44Wb3cANKxqhiCo50="}
{"doc":{"id":"2","names":["chad","robert","kroeger"]},"first_name":"CHAD","last_name":"uXXg5wCKPjpyj/qbivPbD9H9CZ5DH/F0Q1Twytnt2hQ="}

See also: