Get Started

This topic explains how to get started with Redpanda Connect.

Install

You can install Redpanda Connect using the rpk command-line tool (CLI). The rpk CLI allows you to create and manage data pipelines with Redpanda Connect as well as interact with Redpanda clusters.

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

  1. Download the rpk archive for Linux.

    • 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
    rpk version 24.1.12 (rev e2bfc05)

MacOS

  • Homebrew

  • Manual Download

  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
    rpk version 24.1.12 (rev e2bfc05)
    This method installs the latest version of rpk, which is supported only with the latest version of Redpanda.

To install rpk through a manual download, choose an option that corresponds to your system architecture. For example, if you have an M1 or M2 chip, use the Apple Silicon instructions.

  • Intel macOS

  • Apple Silicon

  1. Download the rpk archive for macOS.

    • To download the latest version of rpk:

      curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/latest/download/rpk-darwin-amd64.zip

    • To download a version other than the latest:

      curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/download/v<version>/rpk-darwin-amd64.zip

  2. Ensure that you have the folder ~/.local/bin:

    mkdir -p ~/.local/bin

  3. Add it to your $PATH:

    export PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin

  4. Unzip the rpk files to your ~/.local/bin/ directory:

    unzip rpk-darwin-amd64.zip -d ~/.local/bin/

  5. Run rpk --version to display the version of the rpk binary:

    rpk --version
    rpk version 24.1.12 (rev e2bfc05)

  1. Download the rpk archive for macOS.

    • To download the latest version of rpk:

      curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/latest/download/rpk-darwin-arm64.zip

    • To download a version other than the latest:

      curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/download/v<version>/rpk-darwin-arm64.zip

  2. Ensure that you have the folder ~/.local/bin:

    mkdir -p ~/.local/bin

  3. Add it to your $PATH:

    export PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin

  4. Unzip the rpk files to your ~/.local/bin/ directory:

    unzip rpk-darwin-arm64.zip -d ~/.local/bin/

  5. Run rpk --version to display the version of the rpk binary:

    rpk --version
    rpk version 24.1.12 (rev e2bfc05)

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

rpk connect create > connect.yaml

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: