Kafka 0.10.1.0 Test Server: Request METADATA failed - apache-kafka

Question

I'm getting basic errors after setting up a super simple single-instance Kafka VM. This is for tiny volume development testing.
This is using the latest Confluent Platform 3.1.1 which includes the almost latest Kafka 0.10.1.0.
FYI, a slightly newer bug patch Kafka 0.10.1.1 is out, but the next post 3.1.1 Confluent Platform binary that includes that isn't available quite yet.
I configure /etc/kafka/server.properties with (I'm using a static local IP for dev testing simplicity):
listeners=PLAINTEXT://192.168.50.20:9092
advertised.listeners=PLAINTEXT://192.168.50.20:9092
(is that right?)
Simple console admin commands are generating errors. This leads me to believe that there is something wrong with the basic setup/configuration.
~$ /usr/bin/kafka-consumer-groups --new-consumer --bootstrap-server localhost:9092 --list
Error while executing consumer group command Request METADATA failed on brokers List(localhost:9092 (id: -1 rack: null))
java.lang.RuntimeException: Request METADATA failed on brokers List(localhost:9092 (id: -1 rack: null))
at kafka.admin.AdminClient.sendAnyNode(AdminClient.scala:67)
at kafka.admin.AdminClient.findAllBrokers(AdminClient.scala:87)
at kafka.admin.AdminClient.listAllGroups(AdminClient.scala:96)
at kafka.admin.AdminClient.listAllGroupsFlattened(AdminClient.scala:117)
at kafka.admin.AdminClient.listAllConsumerGroupsFlattened(AdminClient.scala:121)
at kafka.admin.ConsumerGroupCommand$KafkaConsumerGroupService.list(ConsumerGroupCommand.scala:304)
at kafka.admin.ConsumerGroupCommand$.main(ConsumerGroupCommand.scala:66)
at kafka.admin.ConsumerGroupCommand.main(ConsumerGroupCommand.scala)
EDIT: The problem, thanks to Gondola_Ride, was that I specified the IP in listeners in server.properties. I could connect via that IP, but not via localhost. The solution was to use host 0.0.0.0 which is Kafka's convention for binding to all local TCP interfaces:
listeners=PLAINTEXT://0.0.0.0:9092
advertised.listeners=PLAINTEXT://192.168.50.20:9092

Answer 1

Try adding an entry in the /etc/hosts on the host where you are running this command for this host 192.168.50.20 and see if it works
Something like
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost
OR
192.168.50.20 hostname hostname-alias
Then try using it in the command
OR
Try using ip address directly in the command instead of localhost