Delete a Kafka Topic

kafka-topics –zookeeper zk_host:port/chroot –delete –topic my_topic_name

The topic will be “marked for deletion” and should be removed soon. What happens is an /admin/delete_topics/<topic> node is created in zookeeper and triggers a deletion. When the broker sees this update, the topic will no longer accept a new produce/consume request and eventually the topic will be deleted. If the delete command doesn’t work right away, try restarting the Kafka service.

To delete a Kafka topic after the Broker has lost connection to the topic:

Manually delete the topic:

If the delete commands fails (marked for deletion forever):

1. Stop the Kafka Broker.

2. Delete the topic from disk.

For example:

sudo mv /space1/kafka/FourSquareSearchApiResults-0 /space1/kafka/FourSquareSearchApiResults-0.bak

3. Delete the topic znode from ZooKeeper:

 

Here are the ZooKeeper commands to use to delete the topic from ZK:

1. Log onto zkcli:

hbase zkcli

2. Search for topics:

ls /brokers/topics

rmr /brokers/topics/my_topic_name

ls /brokers/topics

3. Start Kafka.

4. You can then recreate the Kafka topic.