System: rmoff@proxmox01:~$ uname -a Linux proxmox01 4.4.6-1-pve #1 SMP Thu Apr 21 11:25:40 CEST 2016 x86_64 GNU/Linux rmoff@proxmox01:~$ head -n1 /etc/os-release PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 8 (jessie)" rmoff@proxmox01:~$ python --version Python 2.7.9 Following: https://www.confluent.io/blog/introduction-to-apache-kafka-for-python-programmers/ https://github.com/confluentinc/confluent-kafka-python Install librdkafka, which is a pre-req for the Python library: wget -qO - https://packages.confluent.io/deb/4.0/archive.key | sudo apt-key add - sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.confluent.io/deb/4.0 stable main" sudo apt-get install librdkafka-dev python-dev Setup virtualenv: sudo apt-get install virtualenv virtualenv kafka_push_notify source .