Host resolution error while using node-rdkafka - node.js

Question

I'm running node-rdkafka as a Node.js application. The consumer hangs indefinitely without pulling any messages from kafka (works on localhost).
Emits the below error,
{ Error: Local: Host resolution failure
origin: 'local',
message: 'host resolution failure',
code: -1,
errno: -1,
stack: 'Error: Local: Host resolution failure' }
The application works to the point of receiving data from kafka. The kafka instance is fine, validated by producing and consuming messages using the console.
Any help with debugging why this is occurring is much appreciated.
Sample consumer code here - https://github.com/Blizzard/node-rdkafka/blob/master/examples/consumer-flow.md

Answer 1

This issue happens due to the different networks of your client and broker.
The simple hack is to make host entry of advertised.listeners
For example,
advertised.listeners=PLAINTEXT://kafka:9092
Then add an entry in /etc/hosts with your kafka-broker-IP. For e.g. kafka-borker-IP is 192.168.1.1
192.168.1.1 kafka
You can use kafkacat utility to check your broker's IP.
kafkacat -b kafka:9092 -L
It will return metadata about the brokers.
You need to check that returned broker's IP is reachable or not from your machine.
For a better understanding of this issue.
You can refer https://www.confluent.io/blog/kafka-listeners-explained/

Answer 2

I had this exact problem when running kafka locally using the quick start instructions from https://kafka.apache.org/quickstart
For me, adding the following two lines to config/server.properties before starting kafka-server has solved the issue -
listeners=PLAINTEXT://localhost:9092
advertised.listeners=PLAINTEXT://localhost:9092