Heya Viktor, I carried out the following checks to validate the release:
* Ran the quickstarts against the Docker images * Read the Release Notes * Checked the workflow outputs * Built the source code and ran the quickstart against the resulting binaries * Ran the quickstart against the already compiled binaries * Did a few random walks through the Javadocs * Did a few random walks through the updated site documentation +1 (binding) Thanks for pushing for this! Best, Christo On Thu, 5 Mar 2026 at 16:09, Andrew Schofield <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Viktor, > Thanks for running the release. I did the following to validate it: > > * Verified the gpg signatures > * Checked the release notes > * Built from source and ran client tests > * Ran the quickstart and console tools > * Checked the javadoc > * Pulled and ran the docker images > * Checked the docs > > +1 (binding) > > Thanks, > Andrew > > On 2026/03/04 16:54:36 Viktor Somogyi-Vass wrote: > > Hello Kafka users, developers and client-developers, > > > > This is the third candidate for release of Apache Kafka 4.0.2. > > > > This is a patch release and therefore it contains important bug fixes. > > > > Release notes for the 4.0.2 release: > > https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.0.2-rc3/RELEASE_NOTES.html > > > > *** Please download, test and vote by Wednesday, March 11. > > > > Kafka's KEYS file containing PGP keys we use to sign the release: > > https://kafka.apache.org/KEYS > > > > * Release artifacts to be voted upon (source and binary): > > https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.0.2-rc3/ > > > > * Docker release artifacts to be voted upon: > > apache/kafka:4.0.2-rc3 > > apache/kafka-native:4.0.2-rc3 > > https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.0.2-rc3/kafka_2.13-4.0.2.tgz > > > > * Maven artifacts to be voted upon: > > https://repository.apache.org/content/groups/staging/org/apache/kafka/ > > > > * Javadoc: > > https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/kafka/4.0.2-rc3/javadoc/ > > > > * Tag to be voted upon (off 4.0 branch) is the 4.0.2 tag: > > https://github.com/apache/kafka/releases/tag/4.0.2-rc3 > > > > * Documentation: https://github.com/apache/kafka-site/pull/807 > > > > * Successful CI builds for the 4.0 branch: > > Unit/integration tests: > > https://github.com/apache/kafka/actions/runs/22615674106 > > System tests: test runs are available at > > https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1K8nfXNgnSOwc61JhRQylICFivn7ZSMKq?usp=sharing > > There were some failures of which all but one are flaky (successful on > > rerun) and one is a known test issue: > > tests/kafkatest/tests/core/network_degrade_test.py::NetworkDegradeTest.test_rate@ > > {"task_name":"rate-1000-latency-50","device_name":"eth0","latency_ms":50,"rate_limit_kbit":1000000,"metadata_quorum":"COMBINED_KRAFT"} > > > > * Successful Docker Image Github Actions Pipeline for 4.0 branch: > > Docker Build Test Pipeline (JVM): > > https://github.com/apache/kafka/actions/runs/22615750194 > > Docker Build Test Pipeline (Native): > > https://github.com/apache/kafka/actions/runs/22615760392 > > > > I will shortly write a blog post too. > > > > Best, > > Viktor > >
