Suppose there is a requirement to expose your Kafka brokers so that external clients can communicate with them.

So here we will be implementing authentication with client certificates in an existing Kafka cluster, and then authenticate as a client to verify that your implementation works.

Generate a client certificate. Choose a password for the client keystore when prompted:

keytool -keystore client.keystore.jks -alias kafkauser -validity 365 -genkey -keyalg RSA -dname "CN=kafkauser, OU=Unknown, O=Unknown, L=Unknown, ST=Unknown, C=Unknown"

Sign the key, then import the certificate authority and signed key into the keystore. When asked for the password to the ca-key, enter the password AllTheKeys:

keytool -keystore client.keystore.jks -alias kafkauser -certreq -file client-cert-file

openssl x509 -req -CA ca-cert -CAkey ca-key -in client-cert-file -out client-cert-signed -days 365 -CAcreateserial

keytool -keystore client.keystore.jks -alias CARoot -import -file ca-cert

keytool -keystore client.keystore.jks -alias kafkauser -import -file client-cert-signed

Move the client keystore into an appropriate location:

sudo cp client.keystore.jks /var/private/ssl/

sudo chown root:root /var/private/ssl/client.keystore.jks

Enable Client Authentication for the Broker

Set client authentication to required in server.properties:

Locate the line that begins with ssl.client.auth and change it:

Restart Kafka and then verify that everything is working:

Add Client Authentication Settings to Your Client Config File

ssl.keystore.location=/var/private/ssl/client.keystore.jks

ssl.keystore.password=<your client keystore password>

ssl.key.password=<your client key password>

Create a console consumer using client authentication to make verify that everything is working:

kafka-console-consumer --bootstrap-server zoo1:9093 --topic inventory_purchases --from-beginning --consumer.config client-ssl.properties

In this blog, we will learn how to expose our Kafka brokers so that external clients can communicate with them.

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