Prerequisites for Creating a Connection

You must satisfy the following prerequisites to create a connection with the Confluent Adapter:

Know the Host and Port of the Bootstrap Server

Know the host and port of the bootstrap server to use to connect to a list of Kafka brokers.

Know the schema registry URL and the schema registry user name and password.
Know the schema registry URL to connect to the schema registry to use the schemas.

Obtain Security Policy Details

Obtain the following security policy details for the Confluent Adapter:

If using the SASL Plain over SSL or SASL Plain security policy, know the SASL user name and password.
To use the SASL Plain over SSL or Mutual TLS security policy, have the required certificates.

Configure Confluent Kafka

To configure Confluent Kafka with the Confluent Adapter, you must obtain the following information to successfully configure the Confluent Adapter on the Connections page.

Generate the user name and password required for the Connections page at the following location:
```
https://confluent.cloud/environments/env-dvgny/clusters/lkc-rjn91/api-keys
```
1. Click Add Key.
2. Enter the key in the SASL Username field and the secret key in the SASL Password field on the Connections page. See Configure Connection Security.
(Optional) Generate the truststore:
1. Generate the certificate.
```
 echo -n | openssl s_client -connect host:port | sed -ne '/-BEGIN CERTIFICATE-/,/-END CERTIFICATE-/p' > /tmp/server.cert
```
  Where host:port is the combination of the bootstrap server and port.
2. Generate the truststore from the certificate created.
```
keytool -keystore conf_2.jks -alias ConfRoot -import -file conf_server.cert -storetype JKS
```
  Note:
  Specify the -storetype JKS option when generating the truststore with a JDK version higher than 8.
  
  For this example, conf_2.jks is the name of the truststore file to upload in the TrustStore field on the Connections page.
3. When prompted, enter a password. Remember the password because you must enter it in the Truststore password field on the Connections page.

Copy JAR Files After Connectivity Agent Installation

Confluent has version-specific and Kafka-compatible dependency libraries to support Avro serilizers and the schema registry. After installing the connectivity agent, copy the kafka-schema-serializer, kafka-schema-registry-client, and kafka-avro-serializer version 7.5.x JARs along with the dependent guava's failureaccess version 1.0.1 JAR to agenthome/thirdparty/dependency and restart the connectivity agent.

Note:

The Confluent Adapter supports Confluent Avro serializers/deserializers and Apache Kafka serializers/deserializers (String/ByteArray). It doesn't support other Confluent serializers/deserializers or any other serializers/deserializers.