If you want to understand how to install and configure Redpanda on Debian 11 as a developer, you’ve come to the right place.
Redpanda is a distributed streaming platform that can be used as an alternative to Kafka. We will discuss the basic features of Redpanda and the steps for installing Redpanda. In addition, we will also discuss the installation of the following two related utilities:
- Redpanda Keeper: A command line utility to interact with the Redpanda cluster
- Redpanda Console: A web application to manage and debug Redpanda workloads
What is Redpanda?
Redpanda is a Kafka-compatible streaming data platform. The following are its main features:
- It is ten times faster and six times more cost-efficient
- It doesn’t require Java virtual machine (JVM) and ZooKeeper
- It is open source, Jepsen-tested
- It can be quickly deployed as it available as a single binary
- It is used natively with Kafka tools
How to Install and Configure Redpanda on Debian 11
We will discuss the installation steps for Redpanda. To perform the steps below, ensure a system with Debian installed and a root account or account with sudo permissions. Now perform the steps below. After performing these steps, you should have a single node cluster running Redpanda.
Update the packages
The very first step is to update your packages by running the following commands on the Terminal:
$sudo apt update
$sudo apt upgrade
Download the repo
For the next step, type the following curl command on the Terminal to download the repo:
$curl -1sLf 'https://dl.redpanda.com/nzc4ZYQK3WRGd9sy/redpanda/cfg/setup/bash.deb.sh' | sudo -E bash
Install Redpanda
Then, you can install Redpanda by running the following command:
$sudo apt install redpanda
Enable production mode
When you install Redpanda for the first time, it is configured to run in development mode. You should enable the production mode to make the most of this tool. Run the following commands to enable production mode:
$sudo rpk redpanda mode production
Then, run the following command to auto-tune such that Redpanda gives the best performance:
$sudo rpk tune all
Start Redpanda
Now, we need to start the Redpanda service in the system. We will use the following systemctl command for this purpose:
$sudo systemctl start redpanda
This will start Redpanda. You can verify that Redpanda is running by typing the following command on the Terminal:
$ sudo systemctl status redpanda
Enable Redpanda on boot
Finally, we will enable Redpanda to start on system boot. Use the following systemctl command to enable Redpanda on boot:
$sudo systemctl enable redpanda
And that’s it. You should have the cluster created for Redpanda. Redpanda will be running on port 9092. You will be able to access it similarly to the way you were able to access Kafka.
Installation of Redpanda Keeper (rpk)
Along with Redpanda, we can install Redpanda Keeper. It is a command line utility to interact with Redpanda clusters. To install the rpk from a separate binary, perform the following steps.
Download the archive by running the following curl command:
$curl -LO https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/latest/download/rpk-linux-amd64.zip
Create a folder on your system by running the following command:
$mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
Set the path to point to the above folder as follows:
$export PATH="~/.local/bin:$PATH"
Now, extract the zip file to the above folder by running the command below:
$unzip rpk-linux-amd64.zip -d ~/.local/bin/
Once the above steps have been performed, you can check the rpk version with the following command:
$rpk version
You should see the version number information.
Installation of Redpanda Console
Finally, we will install the Redpanda Console. It is a web application that can easily manage or debug Redpanda’s workload. The Redpanda Console can be run from docker or installed from the apt package manager.
Installation via docker
One of the approaches to using Redpanda is through the docker. Run the following command on your Terminal:
docker run --network=host \
-e KAFKA_BROKERS=localhost:9092 \
docker.redpanda.com/vectorized/console:latest
The previous command will connect your Redpanda Console to the Kafka cluster on your local system. To connect to a remote machine, run the following command:
docker run -p 8080:8080 \
-e KAFKA_BROKERS=bootstrap.cluster-hash.redpanda.cloud:9092 \
-e KAFKA_TLS_ENABLED=true \
-e KAFKA_SASL_ENABLED=true \
-e KAFKA_SASL_MECHANISM=SCRAM-SHA-256 \
-e KAFKA_SASL_USERNAME=xxx \
-e KAFKA_SASL_PASSWORD=xxx \
docker.redpanda.com/vectorized/console:latest
Installation through the apt package manager
The installation of the Redpanda Console through the apt package manager is very straightforward. Run the following curl command first:
curl -1sLf \
'https://dl.redpanda.com/nzc4ZYQK3WRGd9sy/redpanda/cfg/setup/bash.deb.sh' \
| sudo -E bash
Then, install the Redpanda Console using the following command:
$sudo apt-get install redpanda-console
After the installation, you can start the Redpanda Console via the following command:
$sudo systemctl start redpanda-console
This will start the Redpanda Console on port 8080. Also, you can access the console via the browser.
Tip: Besides the installation steps discussed in this article, we can also install the Redpanda on Kubernetes using the operator.
In this article, we have discussed Redpanda in detail, its installation steps, and its other related tools, such as the Redpanda Keeper and the Redpanda Console. More information about Redpanda can be obtained from its official website.
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