java apache-kafka jvm apache-kafka-connect

Kafka Connect running out of heap space

After starting Kafka Connect (connect-standalone), my task fails immediately after starting with:

java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space
    at java.nio.HeapByteBuffer.<init>(HeapByteBuffer.java:57)
    at java.nio.ByteBuffer.allocate(ByteBuffer.java:335)
    at org.apache.kafka.common.network.NetworkReceive.readFromReadableChannel(NetworkReceive.java:93)
    at org.apache.kafka.common.network.NetworkReceive.readFrom(NetworkReceive.java:71)
    at org.apache.kafka.common.network.KafkaChannel.receive(KafkaChannel.java:154)
    at org.apache.kafka.common.network.KafkaChannel.read(KafkaChannel.java:135)
    at org.apache.kafka.common.network.Selector.pollSelectionKeys(Selector.java:343)
    at org.apache.kafka.common.network.Selector.poll(Selector.java:291)
    at org.apache.kafka.clients.NetworkClient.poll(NetworkClient.java:260)
    at org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.ConsumerNetworkClient.poll(ConsumerNetworkClient.java:232)
    at org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.ConsumerNetworkClient.poll(ConsumerNetworkClient.java:180)
    at org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.AbstractCoordinator.ensureCoordinatorReady(AbstractCoordinator.java:193)
    at org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.internals.ConsumerCoordinator.poll(ConsumerCoordinator.java:248)
    at org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.KafkaConsumer.pollOnce(KafkaConsumer.java:1013)
    at org.apache.kafka.clients.consumer.KafkaConsumer.poll(KafkaConsumer.java:979)
    at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.WorkerSinkTask.pollConsumer(WorkerSinkTask.java:316)
    at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.WorkerSinkTask.poll(WorkerSinkTask.java:222)
    at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.WorkerSinkTask.iteration(WorkerSinkTask.java:170)
    at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.WorkerSinkTask.execute(WorkerSinkTask.java:142)
    at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.WorkerTask.doRun(WorkerTask.java:140)
    at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.WorkerTask.run(WorkerTask.java:175)
    at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:511)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)

There's a mention of heap space in some Kafka documentation, telling you to try it with "the default" and only modifying it if there are problems, but there are no instructions to modify the heap space.

Solution

You can control the max and initial heap size by setting the KAFKA_HEAP_OPTS environment variable.

The following example sets a starting size of 512 MB and a maximum size of 1 GB:

KAFKA_HEAP_OPTS="-Xms512m -Xmx1g" connect-standalone connect-worker.properties connect-s3-sink.properties

When running a Kafka command such as connect-standalone, the kafka-run-class script is invoked, which sets a default heap size of 256 MB in the KAFKA_HEAP_OPTS environment variable if it is not already set.