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Kafma v1.2.0

Kafma v1.2.0 adds Kafka Connect management and AWS Glue Schema Registry support. Create, configure, and troubleshoot connectors without leaving Kafma, and decode, produce, and clone data that uses Glue schemas. Consumer lag history now stays available after you close a group's details. On Free, you can now clone a single topic between your two clusters and forward a single message from the Console to your other cluster.

Kafma Kafka Connect listing connectors with their status, tasks, plugins, and Connect clusters

Manage Kafka Connect connectors

The new Kafka Connect page lists connectors across your Connect clusters with their status, tasks, and plugins.

  • Create a connector from an installed plugin. Kafka Connect validates the configuration before the connector is created.
  • Edit configuration in a form or as JSON. The form shows field documentation where available and validation errors from Kafka Connect.
  • Pause, resume, stop, restart, or delete connectors. You can also restart only failed tasks or a single task.
  • See task states and failure traces, with plain-language explanations of common failures.
  • View source connector offsets, and sink connector positions and lag from their consumer groups.
  • Find connectors by name in the command palette.

Stopping connectors and viewing source connector offsets require Kafka Connect 3.5 or later. Connector changes respect the cluster's Read-Only setting and appear in Activity Logs with sensitive configuration values redacted.

To get started, add your Connect clusters in the cluster settings. Kafma supports Basic Auth, Bearer Token, and SSL with optional client certificates. Test shows the Connect version and warns if it uses a different Kafka cluster.

See which connectors use a topic

Topic details now list the connectors that read from the topic, have written to it, or use it as a dead-letter queue, along with each connector's status. Click a connector to open its details on the Kafka Connect page.

If Kafma can't tell whether a connector uses the topic, or can't reach a Connect cluster, it names them below the list instead of leaving them out.

Work with AWS Glue Schema Registry

Kafma now supports AWS Glue Schema Registry for Avro, JSON Schema, and Protobuf. It uses the official AWS Glue wire format. Kafma can read records from your existing Glue producers, and your Glue consumers can read records produced by Kafma.

  • Browse and compare schema versions, register or delete schemas, publish new versions, and change compatibility.
  • Generate mock payloads in the Mock tab and validate them in the Lab tab.
  • Decode Glue messages in the Console and produce records with Glue schemas.
  • Copy schemas and records with Data Clone between Glue registries, or between Glue and Standard Schema Registry. Kafma converts schema-backed records to the destination registry's format.

Standard schemas that use references can't be copied to Glue.

To set it up, choose AWS Glue in the Schema Registry settings and enter the Region and registry name. AWS credentials are configured separately from Kafka authentication. Use the default credential chain, an AWS profile, or access keys, with an optional role to assume. Test checks access to the registry.

Kafma AWS Glue Schema Registry settings with credential source, region, registry name, and optional assume role

Clone and forward across clusters on Free

Free can now clone a topic between your two clusters. Data Clone copies topic structure, schemas, and selected messages, with optional field masking. On Free, each run clones a single topic; cloning several topics in one run requires Pro.

Free can also forward a single message from the Console to your other cluster with Forward to cluster. It goes to the topic with the same name, which Kafma creates if it doesn't exist. Forward sends schema-encoded messages as decoded JSON or text; use Data Clone to keep the schema encoding. Forwarding the current filtered set of messages requires Pro.

Keep consumer lag history while you debug

Consumer group lag history now stays available when you close and reopen a group's details, until Kafma restarts.

To keep sampling after you close the details, turn on the switch beside Total Lag. Without monitoring, the time the details were closed shows as a gap in the chart. Monitored groups keep up to one hour of history and show a MONITORING badge in the group list. Monitoring stops when the cluster disconnects.

Other improvements and fixes

  • Clicking the current cluster in the sidebar now also opens its cluster settings, so you can edit it or switch to another cluster from the list beside it.
  • When a cluster can't connect, the error names the cluster and offers Edit Cluster next to Retry. Long cluster names wrap in connection status and error messages.
  • The Schema Registry URL field now rejects embedded usernames and passwords; use Basic Auth instead. Saved URLs with credentials keep working, and Kafma asks you to move them to Basic Auth on your next edit. Connection errors and new Activity Log entries redact these credentials.
  • Saved Schema Registry URLs with a query string or fragment now retain their base path. The URL field rejects query strings and fragments.
  • With field masking enabled, Data Clone now drops records whose value schema can't be resolved instead of copying them unmasked.
  • Temporary license-service errors no longer deactivate Pro. Kafma keeps your activation and retries within the offline grace period.