Apache Kafka Kafka Topics & Partitions 3

Question 1

What is a Kafka 'segment' in the context of a partition log?

Accepted Answer

A file on disk that holds a contiguous portion of a partition's messages

Answer

A subset of partitions assigned to one consumer

Answer

A batch of messages in a single produce request

Answer

A configuration block in server.properties

Question 2

Which topic-level configuration controls the maximum size a log segment file can reach before a new one is created?

Accepted Answer

log.segment.bytes

Answer

log.retention.bytes

Answer

log.roll.ms

Answer

segment.index.bytes

Question 3

What happens to messages in a tombstone record during log compaction?

Accepted Answer

The record with a null value (tombstone) signals deletion of that key during compaction

Answer

It is retained permanently

Answer

It is moved to a dead-letter topic

Answer

The key is archived to object storage

Question 4

What does the 'unclean.leader.election.enable' setting control?

Accepted Answer

Whether an out-of-sync replica can be elected leader, risking data loss

Answer

Whether leader elections are logged

Answer

Whether followers can read directly

Answer

Compaction behavior during leader change

Question 5

How does Kafka ensure ordering guarantees within a topic?

Accepted Answer

Ordering is guaranteed only within a single partition, not across partitions

Answer

All messages in a topic are globally ordered

Answer

Ordering is guaranteed per consumer group

Answer

Only keyed messages are ordered

Question 6

What is the role of the Kafka controller broker?

Accepted Answer

Manages partition leader elections and broker metadata changes cluster-wide

Answer

Handles all consumer group rebalances

Answer

Stores offset commits for all groups

Answer

Routes produce requests from producers