Hello Everyone, Sorry for the duplicate post, I hadn't subscribed to the list yet, so I couldn't reply to suggestions. That has been fixed now.
1) Using Maven, I wrote a Kafka Producer similar to the one found here: https://github.com/pppsunil/HelloKafka/blob/master/src/main/java/com/spnotes/kafka/HelloKafkaProducer.java 2) This is my pom file: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <project xmlns=" http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi=" http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation=" http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd"> <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion> <groupId>HelloKafka</groupId> <artifactId>HelloKafka</artifactId> <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version> <build> <plugins> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.2</version> <!-- nothing here --> </plugin> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.2-beta-4</version> <configuration> <descriptorRefs> <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef> </descriptorRefs> <archive> <manifest> <mainClass>HelloKafkaProducer</mainClass> </manifest> </archive> </configuration> <executions> <execution> <phase>package</phase> <goals> <goal>single</goal> </goals> </execution> </executions> </plugin> </plugins> </build> <dependencies> <dependency> <groupId>org.apache.kafka</groupId> <artifactId>kafka_2.10</artifactId> <version>0.8.2-beta</version> <scope>compile</scope> <exclusions> <exclusion> <artifactId>jmxri</artifactId> <groupId>com.sun.jmx</groupId> </exclusion> <exclusion> <artifactId>jms</artifactId> <groupId>javax.jms</groupId> </exclusion> <exclusion> <artifactId>jmxtools</artifactId> <groupId>com.sun.jdmk</groupId> </exclusion> </exclusions> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId> <artifactId>slf4j-log4j12</artifactId> <version>1.5.6</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.scala-lang</groupId> <artifactId>scala-library</artifactId> <version>2.10.4</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.scala-lang</groupId> <artifactId>scala-compiler</artifactId> <version>2.10.4</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.apache.kafka</groupId> <artifactId>kafka_2.10</artifactId> <version>0.8.2-beta</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>com.101tec</groupId> <artifactId>zkclient</artifactId> <version>0.3</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>com.yammer.metrics</groupId> <artifactId>metrics-core</artifactId> <version>2.2.0</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.apache.kafka</groupId> <artifactId>kafka-clients</artifactId> <version>0.8.2-beta</version> </dependency> <dependency> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId> <version>2.4</version> </dependency> </dependencies> </project> 3) I am really lost on how to run kafka producer from the command line. I have followed the instructions here as seen in my above pom: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1814526/problem-building-executable-jar-with-maven 4) So I have my HKP.java file, then the pom file I have shown above and then I do mvn clean install. It builds the target directory with two jar files...what is my next step? I try java -cp jar.with.dependencies.jar -jar main.jar, but it says no main manifest attribute. I try java -cp jar.with.dependencies HKP, but it says it can't find class HKP I have a feeling I am not writing the mainClass properly as most online examples say com.example.class, but I'm not sure how that translates to working on EC2. Thanks a lot for the help! -Su