Operating system requirements

A collection of operating system requirements for Kafka.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)

Unlike CentOS, SLES limits virtual memory by default. Changing this default requires adding the following entries to the /etc/security/limits.conf file:

* hard as unlimited
* soft as unlimited

Kernel Limits

There are three settings you must configure properly for the kernel.

File Descriptors: You can set file descriptors in Cloudera Manager by going to Kafka > Configuration > Maximum Process File Descriptors and setting the required value. Cloudera recommends a configuration of 100000 or higher.
Max Memory Map: You must configure the maximum number of memory maps in your specific kernel settings. Cloudera recommends a configuration of 32000 or higher.
Max Socket Buffer Size: Set the buffer size larger than any Kafka send buffers that you define.