Docker compose create kafka topics

The simplest way is to start a separate container inside the docker-compose file (called init-kafka in the example below) to launch the various kafka-topics --create ... commands, while first making it wait for Kafka to be reachble by simply running kafka-topics --list ....

Like this:

version: '2.1'
services:

  zookeeper:
    image: confluentinc/cp-zookeeper:6.1.1
    ports:
      - "2181:2181"
    environment:
      ZOOKEEPER_CLIENT_PORT: 2181

  # reachable on 9092 from the host and on 29092 from inside docker compose
  kafka:
    image: confluentinc/cp-kafka:6.1.1
    depends_on:
      - zookeeper
    ports:
      - '9092:9092'
    expose:
      - '29092'
    environment:
      KAFKA_ZOOKEEPER_CONNECT: 'zookeeper:2181'
      KAFKA_LISTENER_SECURITY_PROTOCOL_MAP: PLAINTEXT:PLAINTEXT,PLAINTEXT_HOST:PLAINTEXT
      KAFKA_INTER_BROKER_LISTENER_NAME: PLAINTEXT
      KAFKA_ADVERTISED_LISTENERS: PLAINTEXT://kafka:29092,PLAINTEXT_HOST://localhost:9092
      KAFKA_OFFSETS_TOPIC_REPLICATION_FACTOR: '1'
      KAFKA_MIN_INSYNC_REPLICAS: '1'

  init-kafka:
    image: confluentinc/cp-kafka:6.1.1
    depends_on:
      - kafka
    entrypoint: [ '/bin/sh', '-c' ]
    command: |
      "
      # blocks until kafka is reachable
      kafka-topics --bootstrap-server kafka:29092 --list

      echo -e 'Creating kafka topics'
      kafka-topics --bootstrap-server kafka:29092 --create --if-not-exists --topic my-topic-1 --replication-factor 1 --partitions 1
      kafka-topics --bootstrap-server kafka:29092 --create --if-not-exists --topic my-topic-2 --replication-factor 1 --partitions 1

      echo -e 'Successfully created the following topics:'
      kafka-topics --bootstrap-server kafka:29092 --list
      "

When running it, the init-kafka container should log something like:

docker logs docker_init-kafka_1


[2021-10-12 02:00:28,728] WARN [AdminClient clientId=adminclient-1] Connection to node -1 (kafka/172.24.0.3:29092) could not be established. Broker may not be available. (org.apache.kafka.clients.NetworkClient)
[2021-10-12 02:00:28,832] WARN [AdminClient clientId=adminclient-1] Connection to node -1 (kafka/172.24.0.3:29092) could not be established. Broker may not be available. (org.apache.kafka.clients.NetworkClient)
[2021-10-12 02:00:29,033] WARN [AdminClient clientId=adminclient-1] Connection to node -1 (kafka/172.24.0.3:29092) could not be established. Broker may not be available. (org.apache.kafka.clients.NetworkClient)
[2021-10-12 02:00:29,335] WARN [AdminClient clientId=adminclient-1] Connection to node -1 (kafka/172.24.0.3:29092) could not be established. Broker may not be available. (org.apache.kafka.clients.NetworkClient)


Creating kafka topics
Created topic my-topic-1.
Created topic my-topic-2.
Successfully created the following topics:
my-topic-1
my-topic-2