Integrate Kadeck with Aiven

Learn how to integrate Kadeck with Aiven in our step-by-step guide.

Integrate Kadeck with Aiven

Kadeck is compatible with all Apache Kafka cloud providers, including Aiven. Aiven is a well-known cloud data platform that provides managed services for several popular open-source technologies, including PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, and Apache Kafka. This article will walk you through the steps to create a connection to Aiven in Kadeck.  

Disclaimer: although the process is simple for the most part, it will be necessary for you to use the terminal.

Create a connection in Kadeck

After starting Kadeck, the first thing you need to do is to connect your Apache Kafka clusters. To setup a connection to Aiven in Kadeck, press the +Add Connection Button and proceed with the Apache Kafka connection type.

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In the connection dialog, enter a name for the new connection in the “Connection Name” field. Choose a name that will allow you to find the connection in Kadeck later if you have multiple connections. Then click on Security & Authentication.

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Next, log into your Aiven Account and choose your project, then proceed to choose the service (cluster) within that project that you want to manage through Kadeck.

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In the overview tab of your service, you can choose which type of encryption you want to use, Client Certificate (SSL) or SASL. In both cases, you press the Quick Connect button on the right. 

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Select "Client certificate" or "SASL" depending on your preferred authentication method.

In the dialog that opens after clicking "Quick connect", select Java in the drop-down "Connect with:".

Follow steps 2 and 3 for the client certificate authentication method.

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Only steps 2 and 3 are needed for the client certificate authentication method.

The steps for the SASL authentication method are very similar:

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These are the steps needed for the SASL encryption.

Run the openssl and/or keytool utility from the command line (step 3):

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After you configurated you truststore and keystore in OpenSSL, remember to type “yes” in the end, just pressing enter will cancel the process.

At this point we got everything we need to create the Aiven cluster connection in Kadeck. Go back to Kadeck’s Apache Kafka Connection dialog and enter your Service URI from the Aiven website into the Bootstrap Server input field.

If you chose SSL, you need to enter the file path (including the filename) of the files containing the Truststore and Keystore files you’ve just created in the corresponding text input fields. Enter their respective passwords underneathin the corresponding Password input field. If you use Kadeck 4.3 or any later version, you can use the browse function and select the files rather than just typing out their path.

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For Sasl, put select SASL_SSL as your the security protocol. In the Jaas configuration input field, you need to configure the Apache Kafka Scram Login Module, which is: “org.apache.kafka.common.security.scram.ScramLoginModule required username="<username>" password="<password>"; “. Replace the placeholders with your own username and password from Aiven. For the Sasl Mechanism, select SCRAM-SHA-256. If you use Kadeck 4.3 or a later version, you can click on Browse and upload the truststore and password files. For older versions, type out the storage location manually in the text fields. Adding an additional keystore below is optional and typically not needed for Aiven.

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In both cases, press “Create” to create the connection to your Aiven cluster in Kadeck. To activate the connection, press the “Connect” button on the newly created connection card.

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Wait for a short time until Kadeck connects with Aiven. Y have successfully connected your cluster!

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Integrate Kadeck with Aiven

Nuno Marques is the Lead Architect at Xeotek. Through his years of experience in the big data space, he understands firsthand the challenges of developing data-driven applications and has dedicated himself to making this process more painless.