As of Flume 1.4.0, Avro is the default RPC protocol.

Flume 1.8.0 Developer Guide — Apache Flume http://flume.apache.org/FlumeDeveloperGuide.html

The remote Flume agent needs to have an AvroSource (or a ThriftSource if you are using a Thrift client) listening on some port. Below is an example Flume agent configuration that’s waiting for a connection from MyApp:

a1.channels = c1
a1.sources = r1
a1.sinks = k1

a1.channels.c1.type = memory

a1.sources.r1.channels = c1
a1.sources.r1.type = avro
# For using a thrift source set the following instead of the above line.
# a1.source.r1.type = thrift
a1.sources.r1.bind = 0.0.0.0
a1.sources.r1.port = 41414

a1.sinks.k1.channel = c1
a1.sinks.k1.type = logger

RPC clients - Avro and Thrift¶

As of Flume 1.4.0, Avro is the default RPC protocol. The NettyAvroRpcClient and ThriftRpcClient implement the RpcClient interface. The client needs to create this object with the host and port of the target Flume agent, and can then use the RpcClient to send data into the agent. The following example shows how to use the Flume Client SDK API within a user’s data-generating application:

import org.apache.flume.Event;
import org.apache.flume.EventDeliveryException;
import org.apache.flume.api.RpcClient;
import org.apache.flume.api.RpcClientFactory;
import org.apache.flume.event.EventBuilder;
import java.nio.charset.Charset;

public class MyApp {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    MyRpcClientFacade client = new MyRpcClientFacade();
    // Initialize client with the remote Flume agent's host and port
    client.init("host.example.org", 41414);

    // Send 10 events to the remote Flume agent. That agent should be
    // configured to listen with an AvroSource.
    String sampleData = "Hello Flume!";
    for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
      client.sendDataToFlume(sampleData);
    }

    client.cleanUp();
  }
}

class MyRpcClientFacade {
  private RpcClient client;
  private String hostname;
  private int port;

  public void init(String hostname, int port) {
    // Setup the RPC connection
    this.hostname = hostname;
    this.port = port;
    this.client = RpcClientFactory.getDefaultInstance(hostname, port);
    // Use the following method to create a thrift client (instead of the above line):
    // this.client = RpcClientFactory.getThriftInstance(hostname, port);
  }

  public void sendDataToFlume(String data) {
    // Create a Flume Event object that encapsulates the sample data
    Event event = EventBuilder.withBody(data, Charset.forName("UTF-8"));

    // Send the event
    try {
      client.append(event);
    } catch (EventDeliveryException e) {
      // clean up and recreate the client
      client.close();
      client = null;
      client = RpcClientFactory.getDefaultInstance(hostname, port);
      // Use the following method to create a thrift client (instead of the above line):
      // this.client = RpcClientFactory.getThriftInstance(hostname, port);
    }
  }

  public void cleanUp() {
    // Close the RPC connection
    client.close();
  }

}