Hi,

I agree with Rajini, I'm not sure it's worth re-adding that logic.
If the migration/upgrade use case is important for you, targeting 3.0+
should already cover a large portion of outdated clusters.

Thanks,
Mickael


On Mon, Nov 2, 2026 at 7:41 PM Rajini Sivaram <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hi Federico,
>
> Thanks for the response. I think we removed the old code in
> AbstractFetcherThread to reduce complexity and maintenance cost. It seems
> odd that we would bring back all that complexity in a subclass. Not sure if
> there are users who are still on old broker versions like 2.1 (unlike
> clients). I would have thought that it is sufficient to support 3.0+. It
> will be good to understand how much compatibility we expect to maintain for
> 5.0 and beyond. Let's see what others think too.
>
> Regards,
>
> Rajini
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 2, 2026 at 5:58 PM Federico Valeri <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Hi Rajini, thanks for letting us know. The schema is still there and we
> > think it is important to keep support for 2.1 to help old Kafka versions
> > users to migrate to latest version, so we would like to reintroduce that
> > logic just for Cluster Mirroring. Wdyt?
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 2, 2026 at 2:39 AM Rajini Sivaram <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Federico,
> > >
> > > KIP-1279 currently states that cluster mirroring source clusters may be
> > > version >= 2.1. We have been removing support for older metadata versions
> > > and
> > >
> > >
> > https://github.com/apache/kafka/commit/b234a3a667055d867319c99fd8eca72200c780a8
> > > removes the explicit truncating phase that sends
> > > OffsetForLeaderEpochRequest from AbstractFetcherThread. So inter-broker
> > > replication now relies entirely on truncate-on-fetch. Are we planning to
> > > introduce OffsetForLeaderEpochRequest in the cluster mirroring fetcher
> > > because we think there is a requirement to migrate from older clusters?
> > Or
> > > are we planning to keep the code simpler and support newer clusters only?
> > >
> > > Thank you,
> > >
> > > Rajini
> > >
> > >
> > > On Mon, Sep 7, 2026 at 12:09 PM Rajini Sivaram <[email protected]>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Thanks Federico! The solutions for both RS25 and RS27 sound good.
> > > >
> > > > Regards,
> > > >
> > > > Rajini
> > > >
> > > > On Mon, Aug 31, 2026 at 5:12 PM Federico Valeri <[email protected]>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > >> Hi Rajini,
> > > >>
> > > >> >Not sure about RS25, but you mentioned you are looking into it again,
> > > so
> > > >> will wait for the response after that.
> > > >>
> > > >> The clamping first attempts to read LSO and LEO from the local
> > > >> ReplicaManager, which is an in-memory lookup against the local
> > > >> UnifiedLog instance. This works for any partition the coordinator
> > > >> broker happens to host a replica for. For partitions without a local
> > > >> replica, the coordinator falls back to the Admin listOffsets API,
> > > >> which internally routes the request to the partition leader and
> > > >> returns the offsets. We resolve all mirror partition offsets once at
> > > >> the beginning of each sync cycle, then reuse them for every group. Not
> > > >> one call per partition or per group.
> > > >>
> > > >> KIP Updated.
> > > >>
> > > >> > For RS27, not supporting unclean leader election for older clients
> > may
> > > >> be ok unless the fix is straightforward.
> > > >>
> > > >> We think it is possible to support old versions with the following
> > > >> strategy:
> > > >>
> > > >> We detect the source cluster's fetch version dynamically. On the first
> > > >> fetch request, the fetcher thread always includes lastFetchedEpoch in
> > > >> the request builder. The NetworkClient then queries ApiVersions from
> > > >> the source cluster and selects the latestUsableVersion. Two outcomes
> > > >> are possible:
> > > >>
> > > >> 1. Source supports fetch v12+: the request succeeds with
> > > >> lastFetchedEpoch, and truncation proceeds via the truncation-on-fetch
> > > >> path.
> > > >> 2. Source does not support fetch v12: NetworkClient throws
> > > >> UnsupportedVersionException. We catch it, disable truncation-on-fetch,
> > > >> and fall back to the OffsetsForLeaderEpochRequest path.
> > > >>
> > > >> This handles both old and new source clusters, including live upgrades
> > > >> and downgrades.
> > > >>
> > > >> Unclean leader election handling:
> > > >>
> > > >> Previously we only handled unclean leader election (ULE) in the
> > > >> truncation-on-fetch case. To support older clusters via
> > > >> OffsetsForLeaderEpochRequest, we apply the same principle: log
> > > >> truncation should never happen on the destination cluster during
> > > >> mirroring because we only fetch committed data. If an
> > > >> OffsetsForLeaderEpochResponse does trigger truncation, that truncation
> > > >> must originate from a ULE on the source cluster. In that case, we
> > > >> transition to the ULE_RECOVERY state and wait for all replicas to
> > > >> catch up (when mirror.unclean.leader.election.enable=true).
> > > >>
> > > >> To guarantee that all destination truncations come from source ULEs,
> > > >> we store the "last mirror offset and last mirror epoch" in the LME
> > > >> record. Originally, the LME phase one truncated records with epoch
> > > >> greater than the LME epoch, then phase two relied on normal
> > > >> replication to handle log divergence. The problem: some truncations
> > > >> are side effects of mirroring setup (e.g. reverse mirroring), not
> > > >> ULEs.
> > > >>
> > > >> Example (cluster A mirrors from cluster B):
> > > >>
> > > >> Cluster A (dest)     <----  Cluster B (source)
> > > >> Offset 0: A (LE: 0)          Offset 0: A (LE: 0)
> > > >> Offset 1: A (LE: 0)          Offset 1: A (LE: 0)
> > > >> Offset 2: A (LE: 0)          Offset 2: PID_RESET (LE: 10)
> > > >>
> > > >> When cluster A receives the first OffsetsForLeaderEpochResponse or
> > > >> fetch response from cluster B, offset 2 on cluster A gets truncated.
> > > >> This truncation is not caused by a ULE. Without the last mirror offset
> > > >> and epoch in the LME record, we cannot distinguish it from a real ULE.
> > > >> By storing these values in the LME record, the LOG_ALIGNMENT state
> > > >> truncates only records where: record offset <= last mirror offset, AND
> > > >> record epoch <= last mirror epoch. This correctly truncates offset 2
> > > >> in the example above during LOG_ALIGNMENT. After alignment completes,
> > > >> any subsequent truncation on the destination is guaranteed to
> > > >> originate from a source cluster ULE.
> > > >>
> > > >> Let us know if you are good with this solution. KIP update will
> > follow.
> > > >>
> > > >> Thanks
> > > >> Fede
> > > >>
> > > >
> > >
> >

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