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Exporting Data to a File with Kafka Connect

Kafka Connect provides several connectors to help you move data to and from a variety of external sources. In this lab, you will implement a basic connector to copy Kafka data to a file on the local disk. This simple exercise will give you some hands-on experience interacting with Kafka Connect, and this introduction will prepare you to work with more advanced use cases.

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Lab Info
Level
Intermediate
Last updated
Sep 25, 2025
Duration
30m

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Table of Contents
  1. Challenge

    Create a Connector to Export Data from the `inventory_purchases` Topic to a File
    1. Create a FileStreamSinkConnector:
    curl -X POST http://localhost:8083/connectors -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{
      "name": "file_sink",
      "config": {
        "connector.class": "org.apache.kafka.connect.file.FileStreamSinkConnector",
        "tasks.max": "1",
        "file": "/home/cloud_user/output/output.txt",
        "topics": "inventory_purchases",
        "key.converter": "org.apache.kafka.connect.storage.StringConverter",
        "value.converter": "org.apache.kafka.connect.storage.StringConverter"
      }
    }'
    
    1. We should see data from the topic appearing in the output file:
    cat /home/cloud_user/output/output.txt
    
  2. Challenge

    Publish a New Purchase of Plums to the `inventory_purchases` Topic
    1. Start up a console producer:
    kafka-console-producer --broker-list localhost:9092 --topic inventory_purchases
    
    1. Publish some data representing a purchase of plums:
    plums:5
    
    1. Check the file and verify that the purchase of plums shows up in the file data:
    cat /home/cloud_user/output/output.txt
    

    Note: It may take a few moments for the connector to process the new data.

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