Connecting to Apache Kafka on Heroku in a Private or Shield Space via PrivateLink

Last updated February 07, 2025

This article describes how to use AWS PrivateLink to create a secure connection between an AWS VPC and an Apache Kafka on Heroku add-on provisioned in a Private Space or a Shield Private Space. This process involves three high-level steps:

  1. Creating an endpoint service on your Private or Shield Apache Kafka on Heroku cluster
  2. Creating an endpoint network interface in your AWS VPC
  3. Establishing the secure connection between the two endpoints

As part of setting up the connection, you can specify a list of approved accounts to limit access to your Kafka add-on from the VPC.

To use this feature, you must provision the Amazon VPC you create in a subnet that’s in the same region as your Kafka cluster. See Regions for more information.

Heroku Prerequisites

The following Heroku resources are required to set up a PrivateLink endpoint:

  • A Private Space or Shield Private Space. Create a Private Space or a Shield Private Space using either the Heroku Dashboard or the Heroku CLI.
  • A Heroku app running in the Private Space or Shield Private Space with an attached Apache Kafka on Heroku add-on. All Apache Kafka on Heroku clusters running in a Private Space or Shield Private Space use one of the private or shield plan types, respectively. See Apache Kafka on Heroku on how to create a cluster.

Provisioning the Heroku Endpoint

To install the CLI plugin, run the command:

$ heroku plugins:install data-privatelink

Step 2: Obtain Your AWS Account ID

You can obtain your AWS account ID with the AWS CLI:

$ aws sts get-caller-identity --output text --query 'Account'

123456789101

The example command returns an account ID of 123456789101.

You can also obtain your account ID from the Account page of your AWS account. The Account ID is shown in the Account Settings section:

The Account page of a sample AWS account

Create a PrivateLink endpoint using the following Heroku CLI command and substitute the values:

$ heroku data:privatelink:create KAKFA_ADDON_NAME --aws-account-id ACCOUNT_ID --app APP_NAME
  • Replace KAKFA_ADDON_NAME with the name of your Kafka add-on, for example, kafka-simply-12345.
  • Replace APP_NAME with your app’s name.
  • Replace ACCOUNT_ID with the AWS account that receives access to your Kafka add-on. This ID can match any of the following patterns:
    • account-id
    • account-id:user/username
    • account-id:role/rolename

You can specify the --aws-account-id flag multiple times to include multiple accounts.

Here’s an example command with the output:

$ heroku data:privatelink:create kafka-simply-12345 --aws-account-id 123456789101:user/abc.xyz --app privatelink-vpc-endpoint-demo
Creating privatelink... done

Service Name: Provisioning
Status:       Provisioning

The privatelink is now being provisioned for kafka-simply-12345.
Run heroku data:privatelink:wait KAFKA_URL -a APP to check the creation process.

New PrivateLink endpoints typically take between 5–10 minutes to become available. You can track your progress with heroku data:privatelink:wait KAFKA_URL --app APP_NAME.

Step 4: Obtain Your Endpoint’s Service Name

When the PrivateLink endpoint finishes provisioning, use the command to view its details:

$ heroku data:privatelink KAKFA_ADDON_NAME --app APP_NAME

Replace KAFKA_ADDON_NAME with the name of your Kafka add-on, and replace APP_NAME with your app’s name.

Here’s an example command with the output:

$ heroku data:privatelink kafka-simply-12345 --app privatelink-vpc-endpoint-demo
=== privatelinks for kafka-simply-12345
Service Name:         com.amazonaws.vpce.us-east-1.vpce-svc-0410a2e25933fe8ec
Status:               Operational

=== Allowed Accounts
ARN                                    Status
arn:aws:iam::123456789101:user/abc.xyz Active

Your privatelink is now operational.
You must now copy the Service Name and follow the rest of the steps listed in https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/heroku-kafka-via-privatelink.

Copy the value of the Service Name field from the command’s output. In the previous example, the service name is com.amazonaws.vpce.us-east-1.vpce-svc-0410a2e25933fe8ec. You need this value to provision the Amazon VPC endpoint.

Provisioning the Amazon VPC endpoint

You perform the steps in this section from your Amazon VPC dashboard.

Step 1: Create and Configure a Security Group

Your endpoint requires a security group with appropriate ingress security rules. To create a security group:

  1. Click Create security group in the Security Groups tab of your VPC dashboard.
  2. In the Basic details section, specify a security group name and description, and select your desired VPC.
  3. In the Inbound rules section, click to Add rule.
  4. Enable TCP access to ports 10000–11000 from any valid IP address.
  5. Click Create security group.

The Create security group window on the AWS Console

Step 2: Create the endpoint

To create an endpoint:

  1. Navigate to the Endpoints tab of your VPC dashboard and click Create Endpoint.
  2. Give a name for your endpoint in the Name tag field.
  3. In the Type section, select the PrivateLink Ready partner services category.
  4. In the Service settings section, paste the Service name value you obtained earlier.

  5. Click Verify service to display the list of available subnets.

    The Create Endpoint window on the AWS Console

  6. In the Network Settings section, select the VPC you specified when creating the Security Group.

  7. In the Subnets section, select the subnets to enable and the Subnet ID, and select the IP address type to use.

  8. In the Security group section, select the security group you created in the previous step, and click Create endpoint.

    The Network Settings, Subnets, and Security Groups section of the Create Endpoint window on the AWS Console

The endpoint is created with an initial status of pending acceptance, which transitions to available after 5-10 minutes:

Connecting the Heroku and Amazon VPC Endpoints

After the Amazon VPC endpoint becomes available, you can obtain the URLs from the config vars that Heroku creates to allow your VPC to communicate with your Apache Kafka on Heroku cluster.

First, obtain your PrivateLink endpoint’s endpoint ID and extract the 17-character string that appears at the end of it. Convert that string to upper case and use it in the following command. For example, if the endpoint ID is vpce-01c87ae3c05563935, the endpoint ID is 01C87AE3C05563935.

Run the command, substituting the the string in ENDPOINT_ID_HERE:

$ heroku config --app your_app_name | grep ENDPOINT_ID_HERE

This command displays the AWS VPC endpoint connection URL and the corresponding connection string for your Kafka cluster. The connection string has the following format:

kafka+ssl://vpc-endpoint-dns-name:10001,kafka+ssl://vpc-endpoint-dns-name:10002,kafka+ssl://vpc-endpoint-dns-name:10003

You can now use this connection string to connect the applications in your AWS VPC to your Apache Kafka on Heroku add-on. Here’s an example command with the output:

$ heroku config --app privatelink-vpc-endpoint-demo | grep 01C87AE3C05563935

KAFKA_ENDPOINT_01C87AE3C05563935_URL:  kafka+ssl://vpc-endpoint-dns-name:10001,kafka+ssl://vpc-endpoint-dns-name:10002,kafka+ssl://vpc-endpoint-dns-name:10003

For any issues or concerns with using this feature, open a support ticket.

Limitations

  • You must provision the Amazon VPC endpoint you create in a subnet that’s in the same region as your Apache Kafka on Heroku cluster.
  • You can only connect to your Kafka cluster in availability zones that are common between your own VPC and the Heroku Data VPC.
  • It’s your responsibility to verify the security of your VPC to ensure fully secure access to your Apache Kafka on Heroku cluster.

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