[KAFKA-1518] KafkaMetricsReporter prevents Kafka from starting if the custom reporter throws an exception

• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Not A Bug
• Affects Version/s: 0.8.1.1
• Component/s: tools
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Daniel Compton
• Created: 03/Jul/14 04:27
• Updated: 19/Mar/20 09:50
• Resolved: 19/Mar/20 09:50

Description

When Kafka starts up, it starts custom metrics reporters. If any of these throw an exception on startup then this will block Kafka from starting.

For example using kafka-riemann-reporter, if Riemann is not available then it will throw an IO Exception which isn't caught by KafkaMetricsReporter. This means that Kafka will fail to start until it can connect to Riemann, coupling a HA system to a non HA system.

It would probably be better to log the error and perhaps have a callback hook to the reporter where they can handle it and startup in the background.