Re: [VOTE] 4.4.0 RC0

[Matthias J. Sax]

Thanks. Merged and cherry-picked https://github.com/apache/kafka/pull/23341



I was also recently looking into 
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/KAFKA-20939 which was a blocker, too.

Wondering if disabling KIP-909 behavior on the clients by default is 
sufficient? -- Both Kafka Connect and Kafka Streams, expose all client 
config so users could enable this feature. I did look into both cases.

For KS, it seems overall to be "safe", ie, nothing really bad would 
happen if a user enables KIP-909, but there is also no benefit. The goal 
of KIP-909 is to be more resilient against DNS changes, but KS would 
just crash with an error and shut down hitting the new exception.

However, for KC it seems to be problematic, as KC could enter a bad 
state it cannot recover from, and it does not error out cleanly either. 
-- I am not familiar with Connect and can only parrot what Claude spit 
out. Might be worth to double check by someone familiar with Connect?

Maybe we should remove the new config from both KS and KC as quick fix 
for 4.4 release, and do proper follow-up work on each to make both 
KP-909 ready?

Thoughts?



-Matthias




On 9/5/26 12:25 AM, o.g.h.ibra...@gmail.com wrote:
I will wait for 
https://issues.apache.org/jira/plugins/servlet/mobile#issue/KAFKA-15370 before 
triggering the build for RC1 hopefully by next week we will have all these 
majors and blockers merged
Sent from my iPhone

On 4 Sep 2026, at 17:43, Justine Olshan via dev <dev@kafka.apache.org> wrote:

Yes, Chia-Ping, Ritika was writing the PR. It is merged now. Thanks folks.

On Fri, Sep 4, 2026 at 8:31 AM Chia-Ping Tsai <chia7...@apache.org> wrote:

hi Matthias

I have reviewed the PR, and it makes sense to backport it to 4.4.

Best,
Chia-Ping

On 2026/09/02 23:16:54 "Matthias J. Sax" wrote:
Hi,

I just found a new blocker for 4.4:

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/KAFKA-21025__;!!Ayb5sqE7!ss2r4TlYY9cZOKDp6WcSQoqGBuvIeXZ0s9GFAXgek9IdxwxcvKFEyz2IHTrFRGCu5vcceK6aMvhdJW-zIJ0B$

Please let me know if you think it's not a blocker. Will open a PR for
it shortly.


-Matthias

On 8/28/26 7:26 AM, Chia-Ping Tsai wrote:
Hi Mickael

The fix looks cool, so +1 to backporting it to the 4.4 branch

BTW, I left a comment (

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/apache/kafka/pull/23258*discussion_r3881351602__;Iw!!Ayb5sqE7!ss2r4TlYY9cZOKDp6WcSQoqGBuvIeXZ0s9GFAXgek9IdxwxcvKFEyz2IHTrFRGCu5vcceK6aMvhdJeTjr7KW$
)

Best,
Chia-Ping

Mickael Maison <mickael.mai...@gmail.com> 於 2026年8月28日週五 下午6:47寫道：

Hi,

I merged
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/apache/kafka/pull/23258__;!!Ayb5sqE7!ss2r4TlYY9cZOKDp6WcSQoqGBuvIeXZ0s9GFAXgek9IdxwxcvKFEyz2IHTrFRGCu5vcceK6aMvhdJXdw0cYl$
to trunk.
It should help avoid a data loss scenario on clean shutdown.
Can we apply it to 4.4?

Thanks,
Mickael

On Thu, Aug 27, 2026 at 12:29 PM Chia-Ping Tsai <chia7...@gmail.com>
wrote:

Unfortunately, there is another blocker (

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/KAFKA-20970__;!!Ayb5sqE7!ss2r4TlYY9cZOKDp6WcSQoqGBuvIeXZ0s9GFAXgek9IdxwxcvKFEyz2IHTrFRGCu5vcceK6aMvhdJW3F3Zxx$
) - I forgot to add the
4.4 label :(

It is almost there, and I will take another look soon


Omnia Ibrahim <o.g.h.ibra...@gmail.com> 於 2026年8月27日週四 上午4:01寫道：

Chia if this is the last blocker shall I start RC1

On 25 Aug 2026, at 07:30, Chia-Ping Tsai <chia7...@apache.org>
wrote:

hi Omnia

I have filed a blocker issue (

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/KAFKA-20982__;!!Ayb5sqE7!ss2r4TlYY9cZOKDp6WcSQoqGBuvIeXZ0s9GFAXgek9IdxwxcvKFEyz2IHTrFRGCu5vcceK6aMvhdJaPHDtG3$
) to correct the
docker-compose SASL settings, which currently block clients from
connecting
to the SASL listeners.

Best,
Chia-Ping

On 2026/08/21 17:09:56 Omnia Ibrahim wrote:
Hello Kafka users, developers and client-developers,

This is the 1st candidate for release of Apache Kafka 4.4.0.
Apache Kafka 4.4.0 is a minor release that includes 26 KIPs
spanning
improvements to all components.

Release notes for the 4.4.0 release:



https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.4.0-rc0/RELEASE_NOTES.html__;!!Ayb5sqE7!ss2r4TlYY9cZOKDp6WcSQoqGBuvIeXZ0s9GFAXgek9IdxwxcvKFEyz2IHTrFRGCu5vcceK6aMvhdJd0mH3V9$

Please download, test and vote by Monday, August 24, 2026 at
3:00pm
BST
(7:00am PT)

Kafka's KEYS file containing PGP keys we use to sign the release:

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://downloads.apache.org/kafka/KEYS__;!!Ayb5sqE7!ss2r4TlYY9cZOKDp6WcSQoqGBuvIeXZ0s9GFAXgek9IdxwxcvKFEyz2IHTrFRGCu5vcceK6aMvhdJdsRfDaA$

* Release artifacts to be voted upon (source and binary):

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.4.0-rc0/__;!!Ayb5sqE7!ss2r4TlYY9cZOKDp6WcSQoqGBuvIeXZ0s9GFAXgek9IdxwxcvKFEyz2IHTrFRGCu5vcceK6aMvhdJfXs_c6l$

* Docker release artifacts to be voted upon:
apache/kafka:4.4.0-rc0
apache/kafka-native:4.4.0-rc0

* Maven artifacts to be voted upon:


https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://repository.apache.org/content/groups/staging/org/apache/kafka/__;!!Ayb5sqE7!ss2r4TlYY9cZOKDp6WcSQoqGBuvIeXZ0s9GFAXgek9IdxwxcvKFEyz2IHTrFRGCu5vcceK6aMvhdJVguUyUp$

* Javadoc:



https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.4.0-rc0/javadoc/index.html__;!!Ayb5sqE7!ss2r4TlYY9cZOKDp6WcSQoqGBuvIeXZ0s9GFAXgek9IdxwxcvKFEyz2IHTrFRGCu5vcceK6aMvhdJRSnvMHx$

* Tag to be voted upon (off 4.4 branch) is the 4.4.0 tag:

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/apache/kafka/releases/tag/4.4.0-rc0__;!!Ayb5sqE7!ss2r4TlYY9cZOKDp6WcSQoqGBuvIeXZ0s9GFAXgek9IdxwxcvKFEyz2IHTrFRGCu5vcceK6aMvhdJWgHYlqB$

* Documentation:
PR:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/apache/kafka-site/pull/905__;!!Ayb5sqE7!ss2r4TlYY9cZOKDp6WcSQoqGBuvIeXZ0s9GFAXgek9IdxwxcvKFEyz2IHTrFRGCu5vcceK6aMvhdJVNqO36I$

* Protocol:
PR:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/apache/kafka-site/pull/905__;!!Ayb5sqE7!ss2r4TlYY9cZOKDp6WcSQoqGBuvIeXZ0s9GFAXgek9IdxwxcvKFEyz2IHTrFRGCu5vcceK6aMvhdJVNqO36I$

* Successful CI builds for the 4.4 branch:

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/apache/kafka/actions/runs/32487577786__;!!Ayb5sqE7!ss2r4TlYY9cZOKDp6WcSQoqGBuvIeXZ0s9GFAXgek9IdxwxcvKFEyz2IHTrFRGCu5vcceK6aMvhdJU_vr4lk$

* Docker Build Test Pipeline:
Blocked by a GitHub Actions allowlist issue (fix pending:

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://github.com/apache/kafka/pull/23229__;!!Ayb5sqE7!ss2r4TlYY9cZOKDp6WcSQoqGBuvIeXZ0s9GFAXgek9IdxwxcvKFEyz2IHTrFRGCu5vcceK6aMvhdJT5bpOaz$
). The RC Docker images
were built and pushed successfully.

Thanks,
Omnia