Redpanda Console Documentation

Redpanda Console provides a unified user interface to manage multiple Kafka Connect clusters. Through the UI, you can:

• Inspect configured connectors.
• Configure connector settings.
• Perform lifecycle operations: restart, pause, resume, or delete connectors.

If multiple clusters are configured, Console aggregates results (such as connector lists) from all configured clusters into a single view.

Redpanda Console provides several key features for managing data streaming environments:

• Hosting: Learn how to host and deploy the console.
• Kafka Connect: Manage and interact with Kafka Connect clusters.
• Topic Documentation: View and manage documentation associated with specific topics.
• Protobuf: Support for Protobuf schema management and usage.

To use .proto files stored on the local filesystem, you must provide Topic Mappings to link Kafka topics to specific Protobuf types. Redpanda Console will search the specified paths for files with the .proto extension.

kafka:
  protobuf:
    enabled: true
    mappings:
      - topicName: xy
        valueProtoType: fake_model.Order
        keyProtoType: package.Type
    fileSystem:
      enabled: true
      refreshInterval: 5m
      paths:
        - /etc/protos

Once you select a topic (via topic-link-{topicName}), you enter the topic details view. You can navigate between different views using the URL hash or the tab interface:

• Messages Tab (Default): View and interact with messages in the topic.
• Configuration Tab: View grouped settings. Key groups include:
  • Retention, Compaction, Replication, Tiered Storage
  • Write Caching, Iceberg, Schema Registry and Validation
  • Message Handling, Compression, Storage Internals
• Partitions Tab: View partition-specific information.

Direct Navigation:

• /topics/{topicName}#configuration: Directly opens the configuration tab.
• /topics/{topicName}#partitions: Directly opens the partitions tab.

You can provide .proto files by pointing Redpanda Console to a Git repository. The Console will clone and periodically sync the repo, searching for .proto files up to a depth of 5 levels. Topic Mappings are required for this method.

Note on importPaths: This is a list of paths relative to the repository root from which to import Proto files. This feature requires the git configuration to be enabled.

kafka:
  protobuf:
    enabled: true
    mappings:
      - topicName: xy
        valueProtoType: fake_model.Order
        keyProtoType: package.Type
    importPaths: []
    git:
      enabled: true
      refreshInterval: 5m
      repository:
        url: https://github.com/redpanda-data/owlshop-protos.git
      basicAuth:
        enabled: true
        username: token
        password: redacted

On the /topics page, you can perform the following operations:

• Search: Use the search input to find topics by exact name or regex patterns (e.g., ^regex-test.*).
• Filter Internal Topics: Use the "Show internal topics" checkbox to toggle the visibility of internal topics like _schemas.
• Create Topic: Click the "Create topic" button to open a modal for new topic configuration.

Key UI Elements (testIds):

• create-topic-button: Button to initiate topic creation.
• search-field-input: Input for searching topics.
• show-internal-topics-checkbox: Checkbox to show/hide internal topics.
• topics-table: The main table displaying the topic list.

If your Kafka/Redpanda cluster is running on your host machine, use host.docker.internal as the bootstrap server. Ensure your broker's advertised listener is configured to allow connections from this address (e.g., PLAINTEXT://host.docker.internal:9092).

Note for Linux users: Use the --network=host flag to run Console within the host's network namespace. In this case, use localhost:9092 as the broker address.

Redpanda Console supports Buf Schema Registry (BSR) for schema management. BSR uses Kafka record headers (buf.registry.value.schema.message and buf.registry.value.schema.commit) to store metadata instead of embedding IDs in the payload. Topic mappings are not required.

Required Record Headers:

• buf.registry.value.schema.message: Fully qualified message name (e.g., com.example.v1.Order)
• buf.registry.value.schema.commit: BSR commit ID for the schema version

serde:
  protobuf:
    enabled: true
    bufSchemaRegistry:
      enabled: true
      url: "https://buf.build"  # or your BSR instance URL
      token: "your-bsr-auth-token"