Pulsar command-line tools

Pulsar offers several command-line tools that you can use for managing Pulsar installations, performance testing, using command-line producers and consumers, and more.

All Pulsar command-line tools can be run from the bin directory of your installed Pulsar package. The following tools are currently documented:

• pulsar
• pulsar-client
• pulsar-daemon
• pulsar-perf
• bookkeeper

Getting help

You can get help for any CLI tool, command, or subcommand using the --help flag, or -h for short. Here's an example:

$ bin/pulsar broker --help

pulsar

The pulsar tool is used to start Pulsar components, such as bookies and ZooKeeper, in the foreground.

These processes can also be started in the background, using nohup, using the pulsar-daemon tool, which has the same command interface as pulsar.

Usage:

$ pulsar command

Commands:

• bookie
• broker
• compact-topic
• discovery
• configuration-store
• initialize-cluster-metadata
• proxy
• standalone
• websocket
• zookeeper
• zookeeper-shell

Example:

$ PULSAR_BROKER_CONF=/path/to/broker.conf pulsar broker

The table below lists the environment variables that you can use to configure the pulsar tool.

Variable	Description	Default
PULSAR_LOG_CONF	Log4j configuration file	conf/log4j2.yaml
PULSAR_BROKER_CONF	Configuration file for broker	conf/broker.conf
PULSAR_BOOKKEEPER_CONF	description: Configuration file for bookie	conf/bookkeeper.conf
PULSAR_ZK_CONF	Configuration file for zookeeper	conf/zookeeper.conf
PULSAR_CONFIGURATION_STORE_CONF	Configuration file for the configuration store	conf/global_zookeeper.conf
PULSAR_DISCOVERY_CONF	Configuration file for discovery service	conf/discovery.conf
PULSAR_WEBSOCKET_CONF	Configuration file for websocket proxy	conf/websocket.conf
PULSAR_STANDALONE_CONF	Configuration file for standalone	conf/standalone.conf
PULSAR_EXTRA_OPTS	Extra options to be passed to the jvm
PULSAR_EXTRA_CLASSPATH	Extra paths for Pulsar's classpath
PULSAR_PID_DIR	Folder where the pulsar server PID file should be stored
PULSAR_STOP_TIMEOUT	Wait time before forcefully killing the Bookie server instance if attempts to stop it are not successful

bookie

Starts up a bookie server

Usage:

$ pulsar bookie options

Options

Option	Description	Default
-readOnly	Force start a read-only bookie server	false
-withAutoRecovery	Start auto-recover service bookie server	false

Example

$ PULSAR_BOOKKEEPER_CONF=/path/to/bookkeeper.conf pulsar bookie \
  -readOnly \
  -withAutoRecovery

broker

Starts up a Pulsar broker

Usage

$ pulsar broker options

Options

Option	Description	Default
-bc , --bookie-conf	Configuration file for BookKeeper
-rb , --run-bookie	Run a BookKeeper bookie on the same host as the Pulsar broker	false
-ra , --run-bookie-autorecovery	Run a BookKeeper autorecovery daemon on the same host as the Pulsar broker	false

Example

$ PULSAR_BROKER_CONF=/path/to/broker.conf pulsar broker

compact-topic

Run compaction against a Pulsar topic (in a new process)

Usage

$ pulsar compact-topic options

Options

Flag	Description	Default
-t , --topic	The Pulsar topic that you would like to compact

Example

$ pulsar compact-topic --topic topic-to-compact

discovery

Run a discovery server

Usage

$ pulsar discovery

Example

$ PULSAR_DISCOVERY_CONF=/path/to/discovery.conf pulsar discovery

configuration-store

Starts up the Pulsar configuration store

Usage

$ pulsar configuration-store

Example

$ PULSAR_CONFIGURATION_STORE_CONF=/path/to/configuration_store.conf pulsar configuration-store

initialize-cluster-metadata

One-time cluster metadata initialization

Usage

$ pulsar initialize-cluster-metadata options

Options

Flag	Description	Default
-ub , --broker-service-url	The broker service URL for the new cluster
-tb , --broker-service-url-tls	The broker service URL for the new cluster with TLS encryption
-c , --cluster	Cluster name
--configuration-store	The configuration store quorum connection string
-uw , --web-service-url	The web service URL for the new cluster
-tw , --web-service-url-tls	The web service URL for the new cluster with TLS encryption
-zk , --zookeeper	The local ZooKeeper quorum connection string

proxy

Manages the Pulsar proxy

Usage

$ pulsar proxy options

Options

Flag	Description	Default
--configuration-store	Configuration store connection string
-zk , --zookeeper-servers	Local ZooKeeper connection string

Example

$ PULSAR_PROXY_CONF=/path/to/proxy.conf pulsar proxy \
  --zookeeper-servers zk-0,zk-1,zk2 \
  --configuration-store zk-0,zk-1,zk-2

standalone

Run a broker service with local bookies and local ZooKeeper

Usage

$ pulsar standalone options

Options

Flag	Description	Default
-a , --advertised-address	The standalone broker advertised address
--bookkeeper-dir	Local bookies’ base data directory	data/standalone/bookkeeper
--bookkeeper-port	Local bookies’ base port	3181
--no-broker	Only start ZooKeeper and BookKeeper services, not the broker	false
--num-bookies	The number of local bookies	1
--only-broker	Only start the Pulsar broker service (not ZooKeeper or BookKeeper)
--wipe-data	Clean up previous ZooKeeper/BookKeeper data
--zookeeper-dir	Local ZooKeeper’s data directory	data/standalone/zookeeper
--zookeeper-port	Local ZooKeeper’s port	2181

Example

$ PULSAR_STANDALONE_CONF=/path/to/standalone.conf pulsar standalone

websocket

Usage

$ pulsar websocket

Example

$ PULSAR_WEBSOCKET_CONF=/path/to/websocket.conf pulsar websocket

zookeeper

Starts up a ZooKeeper cluster

Usage

$ pulsar zookeeper

Example

$ PULSAR_ZK_CONF=/path/to/zookeeper.conf pulsar zookeeper

zookeeper-shell

Connects to a running ZooKeeper cluster using the ZooKeeper shell

Usage

$ pulsar zookeeper-shell options

Options

Flag	Description	Default
-c, --conf	Configuration file for ZooKeeper

pulsar-client

The pulsar-client tool

Usage

$ pulsar-client command

Commands

• produce
• consume

Options

Flag	Description	Default
--auth-params	Authentication parameters, for example key1:val1,key2:val2
--auth-plugin	Authentication plugin class name
--url	Broker URL to which to connect	pulsar://localhost:6650/
-h, --help	Show this help

produce

Send a message or messages to a specific broker and topic

Usage

$ pulsar-client produce topic options

Options

Flag	Description	Default
-f, --files	Comma-separated file paths to send; either -m or -f must be specified	[]
-m, --messages	Comma-separated string of messages to send; either -m or -f must be specified	[]
-n, --num-produce	The number of times to send the message(s); the count of messages/files * num-produce should be below 1000	1
-r, --rate	Rate (in messages per second) at which to produce; a value 0 means to produce messages as fast as possible	0.0

consume

Consume messages from a specific broker and topic

Usage

$ pulsar-client consume topic options

Options

Flag	Description	Default
--hex	Display binary messages in hexadecimal format.	false
-n, --num-messages	Number of messages to consume, 0 means to consume forever.	0
-r, --rate	Rate (in messages per second) at which to consume; a value 0 means to consume messages as fast as possible	0.0
-s, --subscription-name	Subscription name
-t, --subscription-type	The type of the subscription. Possible values: Exclusive, Shared, Failover.	Exclusive

pulsar-daemon

A wrapper around the pulsar tool that’s used to start and stop processes, such as ZooKeeper, bookies, and Pulsar brokers, in the background using nohup.

pulsar-daemon has a similar interface to the pulsar command but adds start and stop commands for various services. For a listing of those services, run pulsar-daemon to see the help output or see the documentation for the pulsar command.

Usage

$ pulsar-daemon command

Commands

• start
• stop

start

Start a service in the background using nohup.

Usage

$ pulsar-daemon start service

stop

Stop a service that’s already been started using start.

Usage

$ pulsar-daemon stop service options

Options

Flag	Description	Default
-force	Stop the service forcefully if not stopped by normal shutdown.	false

pulsar-perf

A tool for performance testing a Pulsar broker.

Usage

$ pulsar-perf command

Commands

• consume
• produce
• monitor-brokers
• simulation-client
• simulation-controller

Environment variables

The table below lists the environment variables that you can use to configure the pulsar-perf tool.

Variable	Description	Default
PULSAR_LOG_CONF	Log4j configuration file	conf/log4j2.yaml
PULSAR_CLIENT_CONF	Configuration file for the client	conf/client.conf
PULSAR_EXTRA_OPTS	Extra options to be passed to the JVM
PULSAR_EXTRA_CLASSPATH	Extra paths for Pulsar's classpath

consume

Run a consumer

Usage

$ pulsar-perf consume options

Options

Flag	Description	Default
--auth_params	Authentication parameters in the form of key1:val1,key2:val2
--auth_plugin	Authentication plugin class name
-b, --batch-time-window	Batch messages in a window of the specified number of milliseconds	1
--acks-delay-millis	Acknowlegments grouping delay in millis	100
-k, --encryption-key-name	The private key name to decrypt payload
-v, --encryption-key-value-file	The file which contains the private key to decrypt payload
--conf-file	Configuration file
-c, --max-connections	Max number of TCP connections to a single broker	100
-n, --num-consumers	Number of consumers (per topic)	1
-t, --num-topic	The number of topics	1
-r, --rate	Simulate a slow message consumer (rate in msg/s)	0
-q, --receiver-queue-size	Size of the receiver queue	1000
-u, --service-url	Pulsar service URL
-i, --stats-interval-seconds	Statistics interval seconds. If 0, statistics will be disabled	0
-s, --subscriber-name	Subscriber name prefix	sub
-st, --subscription-type	Subscriber name prefix. Possible values are Exclusive, Shared, Failover.	Exclusive
--trust-cert-file	Path for the trusted TLS certificate file
--use-tls	Use TLS encryption on the connection	false

produce

Run a producer

Usage

$ pulsar-perf produce options

Options

Flag	Description	Default
--auth_params	Authentication parameters in the form of key1:val1,key2:val2
--auth_plugin	Authentication plugin class name
-b, --batch-time-window	Batch messages in a window of the specified number of milliseconds	1
-z, --compression	Compress messages’ payload. Possible values are NONE, LZ4, ZLIB or ZSTD.
--conf-file	Configuration file
-c, --max-connections	Max number of TCP connections to a single broker	100
-o, --max-outstanding	Max number of outstanding messages	1000
-m, --num-messages	Number of messages to publish in total. If set to 0, it will keep publishing.	0
-n, --num-producers	The number of producers (per topic)	1
-t, --num-topic	The number of topics	1
-f, --payload-file	Use payload from a file instead of an empty buffer
-r, --rate	Publish rate msg/s across topics	100
-u, --service-url	Pulsar service URL
-s, --size	Message size (in bytes)	1024
-i, --stats-interval-seconds	Statistics interval seconds. If 0, statistics will be disabled.	0
-time, --test-duration	Test duration in secs. If set to 0, it will keep publishing.	0
--trust-cert-file	Path for the trusted TLS certificate file
--use-tls	Use TLS encryption on the connection	false
--warmup-time	Warm-up time in seconds	1

monitor-brokers

Continuously receive broker data and/or load reports

Usage

$ pulsar-perf monitor-brokers options

Options

Flag	Description	Default
--connect-string	A connection string for one or more ZooKeeper servers

simulation-client

Run a simulation server acting as a Pulsar client. Uses the client configuration specified in conf/client.conf.

Usage

$ pulsar-perf simulation-client

simulation-controller

Run a simulation controller to give commands to servers

Usage

$ pulsar-perf simulation-controller options

Options

Flag	Description	Default
--client-port	The port that the clients are listening on	0
--clients	Comma-separated list of client hostnames
--cluster	The cluster to test on

bookkeeper

A tool for managing BookKeeper.

Usage

$ bookkeeper command

Commands

• autorecovery
• bookie
• localbookie
• upgrade
• shell

Environment variables

The table below lists the environment variables that you can use to configure the bookkeeper tool.

Variable	Description	Default
BOOKIE_LOG_CONF	Log4j configuration file	conf/log4j2.yaml
BOOKIE_CONF	BookKeeper configuration file	conf/bk_server.conf
BOOKIE_EXTRA_OPTS	Extra options to be passed to the JVM
BOOKIE_EXTRA_CLASSPATH	Extra paths for BookKeeper's classpath
ENTRY_FORMATTER_CLASS	The Java class used to format entries
BOOKIE_PID_DIR	Folder where the BookKeeper server PID file should be stored
BOOKIE_STOP_TIMEOUT	Wait time before forcefully killing the Bookie server instance if attempts to stop it are not successful

auto-recovery

Runs an auto-recovery service

Usage

$ bookkeeper autorecovery options

Options

Flag	Description	Default
-c, --conf	Configuration for the auto-recovery

bookie

Starts up a BookKeeper server (aka bookie)

Usage

$ bookkeeper bookie options

Options

Flag	Description	Default
-c, --conf	Configuration for the auto-recovery
-readOnly	Force start a read-only bookie server	false
-withAutoRecovery	Start auto-recovery service bookie server	false

localbookie

Runs a test ensemble of N bookies locally

Usage

$ bookkeeper localbookie N

upgrade

Upgrade the bookie’s filesystem

Usage

$ bookkeeper upgrade options

Options

Flag	Description	Default
-c, --conf	Configuration for the auto-recovery
-u, --upgrade	Upgrade the bookie’s directories

shell

Run shell for admin commands. To see a full listing of those commands, run bookkeeper shell without an argument.

Usage

$ bookkeeper shell

Example

$ bookkeeper shell bookiesanity