Consume test messages from a Hermes topic by configuring two consumer clients.

Before you begin

Role required: admin

About this task

The following steps describe how to configure two consumer clients and receive test messages from the Hermes Kafka cluster. Because Hermes uses a pair of Kafka clusters, you must configure two consumer clients with separate consumer bootstrap addresses. This ensures messages are consumed from both clusters without dropping any messages.

Important: You must configure two distinct consumer bootstrap addresses, one for each consumer client.

Refer to these steps when you are ready to consume messages from Hermes for business or production purposes.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to the config directory where you extracted Kafka.
    • For example, on Unix:
      cd /home/user/Software/kafka/config
    • For example, on Windows:
      cd C:\Software\kafka\config
  2. Configure the consumers.
    1. Open the consumer.properties file.
    2. Configure the following SSL properties: 
      security.protocol=SSL

ssl.truststore.password=<truststore password>

ssl.truststore.location=<path to truststore.p12>

ssl.truststore.type=PKCS12

ssl.keystore.password=<keystore password>

ssl.keystore.location=<path to keystore.p12>

ssl.keystore.type=PKCS12

ssl.key.password=<keystore password>
      Replace the following placeholder variables:
      • <truststore password> with your truststore password
      • <path to truststore.p12> with the path to your truststore file
      • <keystore password> with your keystore password
      • <path to keystore.p12> with the path to your keystore file
    3. Save your changes in plain text.
  3. Consume a message using each consumer.
    1. Run the following command for the first consumer client:
      Unix:
      ./bin/kafka-console-consumer.sh --consumer.config ./config/consumer.properties --topic snc.<instance_name>.<namespace>.sn_<app_id>.<topic_name> --group snc.<instance_name>.<consumer_group_id> --from-beginning --bootstrap-server <instance_name>.service-now.com:4100,<instance_name>.service-now.com:4101,<instance_name>.service-now.com:4102,<instance_name>.service-now.com:4103
      Windows:
      bin/windows/kafka-console-consumer.bat --consumer.config config/consumer.properties --topic snc.<instance_name>.<namespace>.sn_<app_id>.<topic_name> --group snc.<instance_name>.<consumer_group_id> --from-beginning --bootstrap-server <instance_name>.service-now.com:4100,<instance_name>.service-now.com:4101,<instance_name>.service-now.com:4102,<instance_name>.service-now.com:4103
      Replace the following placeholder variables:
      • <instance_name> with your instance name
      • <namespace> with the namespace of the domain your Kafka topic belongs to (optional)
      • <app_id> with the application ID
      • <topic_name> with a test topic name
      • <consumer_group_id> with a label of your choice for the group that the consumer belongs to
      Note: Each part of the topic name is case-sensitive.
    2. Open a new terminal window.
    3. Navigate to the Kafka directory.
    4. Run the following command for the second consumer client:
      Unix:
      ./bin/kafka-console-consumer.sh --consumer.config ./config/consumer.properties --topic snc.<instance_name>.<namespace>.<topic_name> --group snc.<instance_name>.<consumer_group_id> --from-beginning --bootstrap-server <instance_name>.service-now.com:4200,<instance_name>.service-now.com:4201,<instance_name>.service-now.com:4202,<instance_name>.service-now.com:4203
      Windows:
      bin/windows/kafka-console-consumer.bat --consumer.config config/consumer.properties --topic snc.<instance_name>.<namespace>.<topic_name> --group snc.<instance_name>.<consumer_group_id> --from-beginning --bootstrap-server <instance_name>.service-now.com:4200,<instance_name>.service-now.com:4201,<instance_name>.service-now.com:4202,<instance_name>.service-now.com:4203
      Replace the following placeholder variables:
      • <instance_name> with your instance name
      • <namespace> with the namespace of the domain your Kafka topic belongs to (optional)
      • <topic_name> with a test topic name
      • <consumer_group_id> with a label of your choice for the group that the consumer belongs to
      Note: Each part of the topic name is case-sensitive.

Result

Test messages are consumed from the Hermes Kafka cluster.