Quick Start

This guide gets you from zero to producing and consuming in a few minutes: start RobustMQ, use the official Kafka CLI to create a topic / produce / consume, and run a minimal Java kafka-clients example.

Prerequisites

• A working Kafka CLI (the kafka-*.sh scripts from any official 3.x / 4.x release).
• For the Java example: JDK 8+ and Maven / Gradle.
• The Kafka protocol listens on port 9092 by default.

Start RobustMQ (single node)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robustmq/robustmq/main/scripts/install.sh | bash
robust-server start

The Kafka listener port is set by the [kafka_runtime] section of the config file, default 9092:

[kafka_runtime]
tcp_port = 9092

A single node does not enable SASL by default, so connections need no authentication — ideal for getting started. To enable authentication, see "SASL connection" below.

Verify with the official CLI

Create a topic

kafka-topics.sh --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 \
  --create --topic quickstart --partitions 3

# Describe
kafka-topics.sh --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 --describe --topic quickstart

RobustMQ auto-creates topics by default, so producing directly also creates the topic implicitly; explicit creation gives you more control.

Produce

kafka-console-producer.sh --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 --topic quickstart
>hello
>robustmq kafka
# Ctrl-C to finish

Consume

kafka-console-consumer.sh --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 \
  --topic quickstart --from-beginning

Seeing the two lines you just produced confirms the data plane works.

Consume with a group and inspect progress

# Consume with consumer group g1
kafka-console-consumer.sh --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 \
  --topic quickstart --group g1 --from-beginning

# Inspect the group's offsets and lag
kafka-consumer-groups.sh --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 \
  --describe --group g1

For more commands, see the CLI Guide.

Minimal Java kafka-clients example

Dependency (Maven):

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.kafka</groupId>
    <artifactId>kafka-clients</artifactId>
    <version>3.7.0</version>
</dependency>

Producer:

Properties props = new Properties();
props.put("bootstrap.servers", "localhost:9092");
props.put("key.serializer", "org.apache.kafka.common.serialization.StringSerializer");
props.put("value.serializer", "org.apache.kafka.common.serialization.StringSerializer");
// Optional: enable idempotent production (supported by RobustMQ)
props.put("enable.idempotence", "true");

try (KafkaProducer<String, String> producer = new KafkaProducer<>(props)) {
    producer.send(new ProducerRecord<>("quickstart", "k1", "hello from java"));
    producer.flush();
}

Consumer:

Properties props = new Properties();
props.put("bootstrap.servers", "localhost:9092");
props.put("group.id", "g-java");
props.put("auto.offset.reset", "earliest");
props.put("key.deserializer", "org.apache.kafka.common.serialization.StringDeserializer");
props.put("value.deserializer", "org.apache.kafka.common.serialization.StringDeserializer");

try (KafkaConsumer<String, String> consumer = new KafkaConsumer<>(props)) {
    consumer.subscribe(List.of("quickstart"));
    while (true) {
        ConsumerRecords<String, String> records = consumer.poll(Duration.ofMillis(500));
        records.forEach(r -> System.out.printf("%s => %s%n", r.key(), r.value()));
    }
}

Tip: enable.idempotence=true works (RobustMQ supports idempotent producers); but do not enable transactions (transactional.id) — RobustMQ does not support transactions yet, see Compatibility & Limitations.

SASL connection (optional)

RobustMQ supports SASL/SCRAM (SCRAM-SHA-256 / SCRAM-SHA-512). Once enabled, clients must provide SASL settings:

# client.properties
security.protocol=SASL_PLAINTEXT
sasl.mechanism=SCRAM-SHA-256
sasl.jaas.config=org.apache.kafka.common.security.scram.ScramLoginModule required \
  username="alice" password="alice-secret";

kafka-console-producer.sh --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 \
  --topic quickstart --producer.config client.properties

For creating SCRAM users and the full security configuration, see the CLI Guide and Compatibility & Limitations.

Next steps

• Core Concepts — understand Topic / Offset / consumer groups / Coordinator
• Protocol Compatibility Matrix — which APIs your client can use
• CLI Guide — complete guide to the official command-line tools