Deploying Redpanda Kafka-Compatible Streaming Platform on Ubuntu 24.04
Redpanda is a Kafka-API-compatible streaming platform written in C++ with no JVM and no ZooKeeper. This guide installs Redpanda on Ubuntu 24.04, secures it with a Let's Encrypt certificate and SASL/SCRAM authentication, tunes the kernel for production, verifies with a producer/consumer test, and exposes Redpanda Console behind Nginx basic auth. By the end, you'll have a secured, production-tuned single-node Redpanda cluster with a web console. Prerequisite: Ubuntu 24.04 server sized per Redpanda's CPU/memory requirements , non-root sudo user, and a domain A record (e.g. redpanda.example.com ). Install Redpanda $ sudo apt update $ curl -1sLf 'https://dl.redpanda.com/nzc4ZYQK3WRGd9sy/redpanda/cfg/setup/bash.deb.sh' | sudo -E bash Warning: Only run vendor setup scripts you trust — piped curl | sudo bash runs with root privileges. $ sudo apt install redpanda -y $ rpk --version Open the Firewall Port Service Purpose 9092 Kafka API Producer/consumer traffic 8082 Pandaproxy (HTTP) REST access for non-Kafka clients 8081 Schema Registry Avro/Protobuf schema versioning 9644 Admin API Monitoring, config, health checks 33145 Internal RPC Inter-node communication $ sudo ufw allow 9092,8082,8081,9644,33145/tcp $ sudo ufw allow 80/tcp $ sudo ufw allow 443/tcp $ sudo ufw reload Issue a Let's Encrypt Certificate Redpanda ships with plaintext networking by default, fine for a lab, not for anything else. $ sudo apt install certbot -y $ DOMAIN = redpanda.example.com $ EMAIL = admin@example.com $ sudo certbot certonly --standalone -d $DOMAIN --non-interactive --email $EMAIL Certbot stores certs under /etc/letsencrypt/live , readable only by root. Redpanda runs as its own redpanda user, so copy the certs into a dedicated directory: $ sudo mkdir /etc/redpanda/certs $ sudo cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/ $DOMAIN /fullchain.pem /etc/redpanda/certs/node.crt $ sudo cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/ $DOMAIN /privkey.pem /etc/redpanda/certs/node.key $ sudo cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/ $DOMAIN /chain.pem /etc/re