configuring-dapr-pubsub

Create a Dapr Component manifest with type pubsub.kafka, set the brokers address, authType, and consumerGroup metadata, then apply it with kubectl apply. Applications access it through the Dapr sidecar HTTP API on port 3500.

Expose a GET /dapr/subscribe endpoint returning a list of pubsubname, topic, and route objects, then implement a POST handler at that route. Incoming messages arrive as CloudEvents, so read the payload from the data field.

Use Kafka for production workloads needing consumer groups, retries, and durable event streams. Use Redis for development or simple scenarios where lightweight messaging without broker management is sufficient.

Yes, set authType to password and provide saslUsername, saslPassword, and saslMechanism such as SCRAM-SHA-256 in the component metadata. Store the password in a Kubernetes Secret and reference it with secretKeyRef.

Common causes are a component not loaded from the resources path, a wrong topic or route in the subscription, or an unreachable broker. Check sidecar logs with kubectl logs on the daprd container and verify registration via the /v1.0/metadata endpoint.

Avoid it when you need direct Kafka client features like manual partition assignment or exact offset control, since Dapr abstracts the broker. It also adds a sidecar per pod, which may not fit extremely resource-constrained deployments.