Hi Christo, I checked: * Downloaded binaries and verified signature, md5, sha512, sha1 for - kafka_2.13-4.2.0-site-docs.tgz - kafka_2.13-4.2.0.tgz - kafka-4.2.0-src.tgz - RELEASE_NOTES.html * Ran through the quickstart commands using binaries, apache/kafka:4.2.0-rc2 and apache/kafka-native:4.2.0-rc2 * Checked that you can consume from the quickstart clusters with bin/kafka-console-share-consumer.sh
+1 (non-binding) Thanks, Rob On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 5:01 AM Christo Lolov <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello Kafka users, developers and client-developers, > > This is the RC2 candidate for release of Apache Kafka 4.2.0. > > This release has many exciting changes: > * Kafka Queues (Share Groups) is now production-ready with new > features like the RENEW acknowledgement type for extended processing > times, adaptive batching for coordinators, and comprehensive lag > metrics. > * Kafka Streams brings the server-side rebalance protocol to GA with a > limited feature set, adds dead letter queue support in exception > handlers, introduces anchored wall-clock punctuation for deterministic > scheduling, and gives users full control over whether to send a leave > group request on closing. > * This release also delivers significant improvements to consistency > and observability: CLI tools now feature standardized arguments like > --bootstrap-server across all tools, metric naming has been corrected > to follow the kafka.COMPONENT convention, and new idle ratio metrics > provide better visibility into controller and MetadataLoader > performance. > * Security is enhanced with a new allowlist connector client > configuration override policy, while thread-safety improvements to > RecordHeader eliminate concurrency risks. > * Additional highlights include external schema support in > JsonConverter for reduced message sizes, dynamic configuration for > remote log manager thread pools, and rack ID exposure in the Admin API > for consumer and share group members. > > Release notes for the 4.2.0 release: > https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.2.0-rc2/RELEASE_NOTES.html > > *** Please download, test and vote by Friday, January 30, 5pm UTC > > Kafka's KEYS file containing PGP keys we use to sign the release: > https://kafka.apache.org/KEYS > > * Release artifacts to be voted upon (source and binary): > https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.2.0-rc2/ > > * Docker release artifacts to be voted upon: > apache/kafka:4.2.0-rc2 > apache/kafka-native:4.2.0-rc2 > > * Maven artifacts to be voted upon: > https://repository.apache.org/content/groups/staging/org/apache/kafka/ > > * Javadoc: > https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.2.0-rc2/javadoc/index.html > > * Tag to be voted upon (off 4.2 branch) is the 4.2.0 tag: > https://github.com/apache/kafka/releases/tag/4.2.0-rc2 > > * Documentation: > * Protocol: > https://github.com/apache/kafka-site/pull/785 > > * Successful CI builds for the 4.2 branch: > Unit/integration tests: The ongoing build for the 4.2.0-rc2 tag can be > found > at > https://github.com/apache/kafka/actions/runs/21398201956/job/61611167690 > > System tests: I have started the tests in my environment and will share > test > results in the next ~24 hours. > > * Successful Docker Image Github Actions Pipeline for 4.2 branch: > Docker Build Test Pipeline (JVM): > https://github.com/apache/kafka/actions/runs/21402423697 > Docker Build Test Pipeline (Native): > https://github.com/apache/kafka/actions/runs/21398799585 > > Thanks, > Christo >
