Setting Python KafkaProducer sasl mechanism property

Question

The sasl mechanism we are using is SCRAM-SHA-256 but the kafka producer will only accept sasl_mechanism as PLAIN, GSSAPI, OAUTHBEARER

The following config will give the error

sasl_mechanism must be in PLAIN, GSSAPI, OAUTHBEARER

config

    ssl_produce = KafkaProducer(bootstrap_servers='brokerCName:9093',
                     security_protocol='SASL_SSL',
                     ssl_cafile='pemfilename.pem',
                     sasl_mechanism='SCRAM-SHA-256',
                     sasl_plain_username='password',
                     sasl_plain_password='secret')

I need to know how can I specify the correct sasl mechanism.

Thanks

Answer 1

Updated answer for kafka-python v2.0.0+

Since 2.0.0, kafka-python supports both SCRAM-SHA-256 and SCRAM-SHA-512.

---

Previous answer for older versions of kafka-python

As far as I understand, you are using kafka-python client. From the source code, I can see that sasl_mechanism='SCRAM-SHA-256' is not a valid option:

    """
    ...
    sasl_mechanism (str): Authentication mechanism when security_protocol
        is configured for SASL_PLAINTEXT or SASL_SSL. Valid values are:
        PLAIN, GSSAPI, OAUTHBEARER.
    ...
    """

    if self.config['security_protocol'] in ('SASL_PLAINTEXT', 'SASL_SSL'):
        assert self.config['sasl_mechanism'] in self.SASL_MECHANISMS, (
            'sasl_mechanism must be in ' + ', '.join(self.SASL_MECHANISMS)) 

One quick workaround is to use confluent-kafka client that supports sasl_mechanism='SCRAM-SHA-256':

from confluent_kafka import Producer 

# See https://github.com/edenhill/librdkafka/blob/master/CONFIGURATION.md
conf = {
    'bootstrap.servers': 'localhost:9092',
    'security.protocol': 'SASL_SSL',
    'sasl.mechanisms': 'SCRAM-SHA-256',
    'sasl.username': 'yourUsername',
    'sasl.password': 'yourPassword', 
    # any other config you like ..
}

p = Producer(**conf)
 
# Rest of your code goes here..