OpenKommander

OpenKommander is a command line utility and admin UI for Apache Kafka compatible brokers.

Prerequisites

• Podman (required for running the development environment)
• Make (required for running development commands)

Development Environment Setup

1. Install Podman Follow the installation instructions for your operating system on the Podman website.

2. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/IBM/openkommander.git
   cd openkommander

3. Start the development environment

   make setup
   make dev

4. Execute into the container

   podman exec -it openkommander-app-1 bash

   Note: Replace openkommander-app-1 in case your is different

5. Build and install cli

   make dev-run

Configuration

The application uses a configuration file located at config/config.yaml. By default, it is configured for the development environment:

kafka:
  broker: kafka:9093

Custom Configuration

You can modify config/config.yaml to connect to different Kafka clusters:

# Development environment (default)
kafka:
  broker: kafka:9093

# Custom environment example
kafka:
  broker: localhost:9092  # For local Kafka installation
  # broker: kafka-cluster.example.com:9093  # For remote cluster

The configuration file is loaded when the application starts. If you need to connect to a different broker after starting the application, you can use the ok login command with a custom broker address:

$ ok login
Enter broker address [kafka:9093]: localhost:9092

CLI Usage

After running the application, you can use the following commands:

Commands

All commands start with prefix ok

Command	Description	Arguments
login	Connect to a Kafka cluster	None
logout	End the current session	None
session	Display current session information	None
metadata	Display cluster information	None
topics	Topic management commands	Subcommands: create, list, delete
help	Display available commands	None

Topics Management

OpenKommander provides a set of commands to manage Kafka topics:

Command	Description	Interactive Prompts
topics create	Create a new Kafka topic	Topic name, partitions, replication factor
topics list	List all available topics	None
topics delete	Delete an existing topic	Topic name

Endpoint	Method	Description	Request Body	Response
/topics	GET	List all topics	None	JSON object with topic details
/topics	POST	Create a new topic	JSON with name, partitions, and replication_factor	Success message
/topics/{topicName}	DELETE	Delete a topic	None	Success message

Example Workflow

1. Build the CLI:

   make build

2. Install the CLI:

   make install

   Note: It may fail due to permission if needed add sudo for example

   sudo make install

3. Connect to the cluster:

   $ ok login
   Connected to Kafka cluster at kafka:9093

4. View session information:

   $ ok session
   Current session: Brokers: [kafka:9093], Authenticated: true

5. View cluster information:

   $ ok metadata
   Cluster Brokers:
    - kafka:9093 (ID: 1)

6. Create a new topic:

   $ ok topics create
   Enter topic name: my-new-topic
   Enter number of partitions (default 1): 3
   Enter replication factor (default 1): 2
   Successfully created topic 'my-new-topic' with 3 partitions and replication factor 2

7. List all topics:

   $ ok topics list
   Topics:
   --------
   Name: my-new-topic
   Partitions: 3
   Replication Factor: 2

8. Delete a topic:

   $ ok topics delete
   Enter topic name to delete: my-new-topic
   Successfully deleted topic 'my-new-topic'

9. End session and exit:

   $ ok logout
   Logged out successfully!