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kn source commands

You can use the following commands to list, create, and manage Knative event sources.

Listing available event source types by using the Knative CLI

Using the Knative (kn) CLI provides a streamlined and intuitive user interface to view available event source types on your cluster. You can list event source types that can be created and used on your cluster by using the kn source list-types CLI command.

Prerequisites
  • The OpenShift Serverless Operator and Knative Eventing are installed on the cluster.

  • You have installed the Knative (kn) CLI.

Procedure
  1. List the available event source types in the terminal:

    $ kn source list-types
    Example output
    TYPE              NAME                                            DESCRIPTION
    ApiServerSource   apiserversources.sources.knative.dev            Watch and send Kubernetes API events to a sink
    PingSource        pingsources.sources.knative.dev                 Periodically send ping events to a sink
    SinkBinding       sinkbindings.sources.knative.dev                Binding for connecting a PodSpecable to a sink
  2. Optional: You can also list the available event source types in YAML format:

    $ kn source list-types -o yaml

Knative CLI sink flag

When you create an event source by using the Knative (kn) CLI, you can specify a sink where events are sent to from that resource by using the --sink flag. The sink can be any addressable or callable resource that can receive incoming events from other resources.

The following example creates a sink binding that uses a service, http://event-display.svc.cluster.local, as the sink:

Example command using the sink flag
$ kn source binding create bind-heartbeat \
  --namespace sinkbinding-example \
  --subject "Job:batch/v1:app=heartbeat-cron" \
  --sink http://event-display.svc.cluster.local \ (1)
  --ce-override "sink=bound"
1 svc in http://event-display.svc.cluster.local determines that the sink is a Knative service. Other default sink prefixes include channel, and broker.

Creating and managing container sources by using the Knative CLI

You can use the kn source container commands to create and manage container sources by using the Knative (kn) CLI. Using the Knative CLI to create event sources provides a more streamlined and intuitive user interface than modifying YAML files directly.

Create a container source
$ kn source container create <container_source_name> --image <image_uri> --sink <sink>
Delete a container source
$ kn source container delete <container_source_name>
Describe a container source
$ kn source container describe <container_source_name>
List existing container sources
$ kn source container list
List existing container sources in YAML format
$ kn source container list -o yaml
Update a container source

This command updates the image URI for an existing container source:

$ kn source container update <container_source_name> --image <image_uri>

Creating an API server source by using the Knative CLI

You can use the kn source apiserver create command to create an API server source by using the kn CLI. Using the kn CLI to create an API server source provides a more streamlined and intuitive user interface than modifying YAML files directly.

Prerequisites
  • The OpenShift Serverless Operator and Knative Eventing are installed on the cluster.

  • You have created a project or have access to a project with the appropriate roles and permissions to create applications and other workloads in OpenShift Container Platform.

  • You have installed the OpenShift CLI (oc).

  • You have installed the Knative (kn) CLI.

Procedure

If you want to re-use an existing service account, you can modify your existing ServiceAccount resource to include the required permissions instead of creating a new resource.

  1. Create a service account, role, and role binding for the event source as a YAML file:

    apiVersion: v1
    kind: ServiceAccount
    metadata:
      name: events-sa
      namespace: default (1)
    
    ---
    apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
    kind: Role
    metadata:
      name: event-watcher
      namespace: default (1)
    rules:
      - apiGroups:
          - ""
        resources:
          - events
        verbs:
          - get
          - list
          - watch
    
    ---
    apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
    kind: RoleBinding
    metadata:
      name: k8s-ra-event-watcher
      namespace: default (1)
    roleRef:
      apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
      kind: Role
      name: event-watcher
    subjects:
      - kind: ServiceAccount
        name: events-sa
        namespace: default (1)
    1 Change this namespace to the namespace that you have selected for installing the event source.
  2. Apply the YAML file:

    $ oc apply -f <filename>
  3. Create an API server source that has an event sink. In the following example, the sink is a broker:

    $ kn source apiserver create <event_source_name> --sink broker:<broker_name> --resource "event:v1" --service-account <service_account_name> --mode Resource
  4. To check that the API server source is set up correctly, create a Knative service that dumps incoming messages to its log:

    $ kn service create <service_name> --image quay.io/openshift-knative/knative-eventing-sources-event-display:latest
  5. If you used a broker as an event sink, create a trigger to filter events from the default broker to the service:

    $ kn trigger create <trigger_name> --sink ksvc:<service_name>
  6. Create events by launching a pod in the default namespace:

    $ oc create deployment hello-node --image quay.io/openshift-knative/knative-eventing-sources-event-display:latest
  7. Check that the controller is mapped correctly by inspecting the output generated by the following command:

    $ kn source apiserver describe <source_name>
    Example output
    Name:                mysource
    Namespace:           default
    Annotations:         sources.knative.dev/creator=developer, sources.knative.dev/lastModifier=developer
    Age:                 3m
    ServiceAccountName:  events-sa
    Mode:                Resource
    Sink:
      Name:       default
      Namespace:  default
      Kind:       Broker (eventing.knative.dev/v1)
    Resources:
      Kind:        event (v1)
      Controller:  false
    Conditions:
      OK TYPE                     AGE REASON
      ++ Ready                     3m
      ++ Deployed                  3m
      ++ SinkProvided              3m
      ++ SufficientPermissions     3m
      ++ EventTypesProvided        3m
Verification

You can verify that the Kubernetes events were sent to Knative by looking at the message dumper function logs.

  1. Get the pods:

    $ oc get pods
  2. View the message dumper function logs for the pods:

    $ oc logs $(oc get pod -o name | grep event-display) -c user-container
    Example output
    ☁️  cloudevents.Event
    Validation: valid
    Context Attributes,
      specversion: 1.0
      type: dev.knative.apiserver.resource.update
      datacontenttype: application/json
      ...
    Data,
      {
        "apiVersion": "v1",
        "involvedObject": {
          "apiVersion": "v1",
          "fieldPath": "spec.containers{hello-node}",
          "kind": "Pod",
          "name": "hello-node",
          "namespace": "default",
           .....
        },
        "kind": "Event",
        "message": "Started container",
        "metadata": {
          "name": "hello-node.159d7608e3a3572c",
          "namespace": "default",
          ....
        },
        "reason": "Started",
        ...
      }
Deleting the API server source
  1. Delete the trigger:

    $ kn trigger delete <trigger_name>
  2. Delete the event source:

    $ kn source apiserver delete <source_name>
  3. Delete the service account, cluster role, and cluster binding:

    $ oc delete -f authentication.yaml

Creating a ping source by using the Knative CLI

You can use the kn source ping create command to create a ping source by using the Knative (kn) CLI. Using the Knative CLI to create event sources provides a more streamlined and intuitive user interface than modifying YAML files directly.

Prerequisites
  • The OpenShift Serverless Operator, Knative Serving and Knative Eventing are installed on the cluster.

  • You have installed the Knative (kn) CLI.

  • You have created a project or have access to a project with the appropriate roles and permissions to create applications and other workloads in OpenShift Container Platform.

  • Optional: If you want to use the verification steps for this procedure, install the OpenShift CLI (oc).

Procedure
  1. To verify that the ping source is working, create a simple Knative service that dumps incoming messages to the service logs:

    $ kn service create event-display \
        --image quay.io/openshift-knative/knative-eventing-sources-event-display:latest
  2. For each set of ping events that you want to request, create a ping source in the same namespace as the event consumer:

    $ kn source ping create test-ping-source \
        --schedule "*/2 * * * *" \
        --data '{"message": "Hello world!"}' \
        --sink ksvc:event-display
  3. Check that the controller is mapped correctly by entering the following command and inspecting the output:

    $ kn source ping describe test-ping-source
    Example output
    Name:         test-ping-source
    Namespace:    default
    Annotations:  sources.knative.dev/creator=developer, sources.knative.dev/lastModifier=developer
    Age:          15s
    Schedule:     */2 * * * *
    Data:         {"message": "Hello world!"}
    
    Sink:
      Name:       event-display
      Namespace:  default
      Resource:   Service (serving.knative.dev/v1)
    
    Conditions:
      OK TYPE                 AGE REASON
      ++ Ready                 8s
      ++ Deployed              8s
      ++ SinkProvided         15s
      ++ ValidSchedule        15s
      ++ EventTypeProvided    15s
      ++ ResourcesCorrect     15s
Verification

You can verify that the Kubernetes events were sent to the Knative event sink by looking at the logs of the sink pod.

By default, Knative services terminate their pods if no traffic is received within a 60 second period. The example shown in this guide creates a ping source that sends a message every 2 minutes, so each message should be observed in a newly created pod.

  1. Watch for new pods created:

    $ watch oc get pods
  2. Cancel watching the pods using Ctrl+C, then look at the logs of the created pod:

    $ oc logs $(oc get pod -o name | grep event-display) -c user-container
    Example output
    ☁️  cloudevents.Event
    Validation: valid
    Context Attributes,
      specversion: 1.0
      type: dev.knative.sources.ping
      source: /apis/v1/namespaces/default/pingsources/test-ping-source
      id: 99e4f4f6-08ff-4bff-acf1-47f61ded68c9
      time: 2020-04-07T16:16:00.000601161Z
      datacontenttype: application/json
    Data,
      {
        "message": "Hello world!"
      }
Deleting the ping source
  • Delete the ping source:

    $ kn delete pingsources.sources.knative.dev <ping_source_name>

Creating a Kafka event source by using the Knative CLI

You can use the kn source kafka create command to create a Kafka source by using the Knative (kn) CLI. Using the Knative CLI to create event sources provides a more streamlined and intuitive user interface than modifying YAML files directly.

Prerequisites
  • The OpenShift Serverless Operator, Knative Eventing, Knative Serving, and the KnativeKafka custom resource (CR) are installed on your cluster.

  • You have created a project or have access to a project with the appropriate roles and permissions to create applications and other workloads in OpenShift Container Platform.

  • You have access to a Red Hat AMQ Streams (Kafka) cluster that produces the Kafka messages you want to import.

  • You have installed the Knative (kn) CLI.

  • Optional: You have installed the OpenShift CLI (oc) if you want to use the verification steps in this procedure.

Procedure
  1. To verify that the Kafka event source is working, create a Knative service that dumps incoming events into the service logs:

    $ kn service create event-display \
        --image quay.io/openshift-knative/knative-eventing-sources-event-display
  2. Create a KafkaSource CR:

    $ kn source kafka create <kafka_source_name> \
        --servers <cluster_kafka_bootstrap>.kafka.svc:9092 \
        --topics <topic_name> --consumergroup my-consumer-group \
        --sink event-display

    Replace the placeholder values in this command with values for your source name, bootstrap servers, and topics.

    The --servers, --topics, and --consumergroup options specify the connection parameters to the Kafka cluster. The --consumergroup option is optional.

  3. Optional: View details about the KafkaSource CR you created:

    $ kn source kafka describe <kafka_source_name>
    Example output
    Name:              example-kafka-source
    Namespace:         kafka
    Age:               1h
    BootstrapServers:  example-cluster-kafka-bootstrap.kafka.svc:9092
    Topics:            example-topic
    ConsumerGroup:     example-consumer-group
    
    Sink:
      Name:       event-display
      Namespace:  default
      Resource:   Service (serving.knative.dev/v1)
    
    Conditions:
      OK TYPE            AGE REASON
      ++ Ready            1h
      ++ Deployed         1h
      ++ SinkProvided     1h
Verification steps
  1. Trigger the Kafka instance to send a message to the topic:

    $ oc -n kafka run kafka-producer \
        -ti --image=quay.io/strimzi/kafka:latest-kafka-2.7.0 --rm=true \
        --restart=Never -- bin/kafka-console-producer.sh \
        --broker-list <cluster_kafka_bootstrap>:9092 --topic my-topic

    Enter the message in the prompt. This command assumes that:

    • The Kafka cluster is installed in the kafka namespace.

    • The KafkaSource object has been configured to use the my-topic topic.

  2. Verify that the message arrived by viewing the logs:

    $ oc logs $(oc get pod -o name | grep event-display) -c user-container
    Example output
    ☁️  cloudevents.Event
    Validation: valid
    Context Attributes,
      specversion: 1.0
      type: dev.knative.kafka.event
      source: /apis/v1/namespaces/default/kafkasources/example-kafka-source#example-topic
      subject: partition:46#0
      id: partition:46/offset:0
      time: 2021-03-10T11:21:49.4Z
    Extensions,
      traceparent: 00-161ff3815727d8755848ec01c866d1cd-7ff3916c44334678-00
    Data,
      Hello!