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Chapter 3. Event sinks

3.1. Event sinks

When you create an event source, you can specify an event sink where events are sent to from the source. An event sink is an addressable or a callable resource that can receive incoming events from other resources. Knative services, channels, and brokers are all examples of event sinks. There is also a specific Apache Kafka sink type available.

Addressable objects receive and acknowledge an event delivered over HTTP to an address defined in their status.address.url field. As a special case, the core Kubernetes Service object also fulfills the addressable interface.

Callable objects are able to receive an event delivered over HTTP and transform the event, returning 0 or 1 new events in the HTTP response. These returned events may be further processed in the same way that events from an external event source are processed.

3.1.1. Knative CLI sink flag

When you create an event source by using the Knative (kn) CLI, you can specify a sink where events are sent to from that resource by using the --sink flag. The sink can be any addressable or callable resource that can receive incoming events from other resources.

The following example creates a sink binding that uses a service, http://event-display.svc.cluster.local, as the sink:

Example command using the sink flag

$ kn source binding create bind-heartbeat \
  --namespace sinkbinding-example \
  --subject "Job:batch/v1:app=heartbeat-cron" \
  --sink http://event-display.svc.cluster.local \ 1
  --ce-override "sink=bound"

1
svc in http://event-display.svc.cluster.local determines that the sink is a Knative service. Other default sink prefixes include channel, and broker.
Tip

You can configure which CRs can be used with the --sink flag for Knative (kn) CLI commands by Customizing kn.

3.2. Creating event sinks

When you create an event source, you can specify an event sink where events are sent to from the source. An event sink is an addressable or a callable resource that can receive incoming events from other resources. Knative services, channels, and brokers are all examples of event sinks. There is also a specific Apache Kafka sink type available.

For information about creating resources that can be used as event sinks, see the following documentation:

3.3. Sink for Apache Kafka

Apache Kafka sinks are a type of event sink that are available if a cluster administrator has enabled Apache Kafka on your cluster. You can send events directly from an event source to a Kafka topic by using a Kafka sink.

3.3.1. Creating an Apache Kafka sink by using YAML

You can create a Kafka sink that sends events to a Kafka topic. By default, a Kafka sink uses the binary content mode, which is more efficient than the structured mode. To create a Kafka sink by using YAML, you must create a YAML file that defines a KafkaSink object, then apply it by using the oc apply command.

Prerequisites

  • The OpenShift Serverless Operator, Knative Eventing, and the KnativeKafka custom resource (CR) are installed on your cluster.
  • You have created a project or have access to a project with the appropriate roles and permissions to create applications and other workloads in OpenShift Container Platform.
  • You have access to a Red Hat AMQ Streams (Kafka) cluster that produces the Kafka messages you want to import.
  • Install the OpenShift CLI (oc).

Procedure

  1. Create a KafkaSink object definition as a YAML file:

    Kafka sink YAML

    apiVersion: eventing.knative.dev/v1alpha1
kind: KafkaSink
metadata:
  name: <sink-name>
  namespace: <namespace>
spec:
  topic: <topic-name>
  bootstrapServers:
   - <bootstrap-server>

  2. To create the Kafka sink, apply the KafkaSink YAML file: 

    $ oc apply -f <filename>

  3. Configure an event source so that the sink is specified in its spec:

    Example of a Kafka sink connected to an API server source

    apiVersion: sources.knative.dev/v1alpha2
kind: ApiServerSource
metadata:
  name: <source-name> 1
  namespace: <namespace> 2
spec:
  serviceAccountName: <service-account-name> 3
  mode: Resource
  resources:
  - apiVersion: v1
    kind: Event
  sink:
    ref:
      apiVersion: eventing.knative.dev/v1alpha1
      kind: KafkaSink
      name: <sink-name> 4

    1
    The name of the event source.
    2
    The namespace of the event source.
    3
    The service account for the event source.
    4
    The Kafka sink name.

3.3.2. Creating an event sink for Apache Kafka by using the OpenShift Container Platform web console

You can create a Kafka sink that sends events to a Kafka topic by using the Developer perspective in the OpenShift Container Platform web console. By default, a Kafka sink uses the binary content mode, which is more efficient than the structured mode.

As a developer, you can create an event sink to receive events from a particular source and send them to a Kafka topic.

Prerequisites

  • You have installed the OpenShift Serverless Operator, with Knative Serving, Knative Eventing, and Knative broker for Apache Kafka APIs, from the OperatorHub.
  • You have created a Kafka topic in your Kafka environment.

Procedure

  1. In the Developer perspective, navigate to the +Add view.
  2. Click Event Sink in the Eventing catalog.
  3. Search for KafkaSink in the catalog items and click it.
  4. Click Create Event Sink.

  5. In the form view, type the URL of the bootstrap server, which is a combination of host name and port.

    create event sink
  6. Type the name of the topic to send event data.
  7. Type the name of the event sink.
  8. Click Create.

Verification

  1. In the Developer perspective, navigate to the Topology view.
  2. Click the created event sink to view its details in the right panel.

3.3.3. Configuring security for Apache Kafka sinks

Transport Layer Security (TLS) is used by Apache Kafka clients and servers to encrypt traffic between Knative and Kafka, as well as for authentication. TLS is the only supported method of traffic encryption for the Knative broker implementation for Apache Kafka.

Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL) is used by Apache Kafka for authentication. If you use SASL authentication on your cluster, users must provide credentials to Knative for communicating with the Kafka cluster; otherwise events cannot be produced or consumed.

Prerequisites

  • The OpenShift Serverless Operator, Knative Eventing, and the KnativeKafka custom resources (CRs) are installed on your OpenShift Container Platform cluster.
  • Kafka sink is enabled in the KnativeKafka CR.
  • You have created a project or have access to a project with the appropriate roles and permissions to create applications and other workloads in OpenShift Container Platform.
  • You have a Kafka cluster CA certificate stored as a .pem file.
  • You have a Kafka cluster client certificate and a key stored as .pem files.
  • You have installed the OpenShift (oc) CLI.
  • You have chosen the SASL mechanism to use, for example, PLAIN, SCRAM-SHA-256, or SCRAM-SHA-512.

Procedure

  1. Create the certificate files as a secret in the same namespace as your KafkaSink object:

    Important

    Certificates and keys must be in PEM format.

    • For authentication using SASL without encryption: 

      $ oc create secret -n <namespace> generic <secret_name> \
  --from-literal=protocol=SASL_PLAINTEXT \
  --from-literal=sasl.mechanism=<sasl_mechanism> \
  --from-literal=user=<username> \
  --from-literal=password=<password>

    • For authentication using SASL and encryption using TLS: 

      $ oc create secret -n <namespace> generic <secret_name> \
  --from-literal=protocol=SASL_SSL \
  --from-literal=sasl.mechanism=<sasl_mechanism> \
  --from-file=ca.crt=<my_caroot.pem_file_path> \ 1
  --from-literal=user=<username> \
  --from-literal=password=<password>
      1
      The ca.crt can be omitted to use the system’s root CA set if you are using a public cloud managed Kafka service.

    • For authentication and encryption using TLS: 

      $ oc create secret -n <namespace> generic <secret_name> \
  --from-literal=protocol=SSL \
  --from-file=ca.crt=<my_caroot.pem_file_path> \ 1
  --from-file=user.crt=<my_cert.pem_file_path> \
  --from-file=user.key=<my_key.pem_file_path>
      1
      The ca.crt can be omitted to use the system’s root CA set if you are using a public cloud managed Kafka service.

  2. Create or modify a KafkaSink object and add a reference to your secret in the auth spec: 

    apiVersion: eventing.knative.dev/v1alpha1
kind: KafkaSink
metadata:
   name: <sink_name>
   namespace: <namespace>
spec:
...
   auth:
     secret:
       ref:
         name: <secret_name>
...

  3. Apply the KafkaSink object: 

    $ oc apply -f <filename>
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