// Module included in the following assemblies:
//
// assembly-config-kafka.adoc

[id='proc-connnecting-to-zookeeper-{context}']
= Connecting to ZooKeeper from a terminal

Most Kafka CLI tools can connect directly to Kafka, so under normal circumstances you should not need to connect to ZooKeeper.
ZooKeeper services are secured with encryption and authentication and are not intended to be used by external applications that are not part of Strimzi.

However, if you want to use Kafka CLI tools that require a connection to ZooKeeper, you can use a terminal inside a ZooKeeper container and connect to `localhost:12181` as the ZooKeeper address.

.Prerequisites

* A Kubernetes cluster is available.
* A Kafka cluster is running.
* The Cluster Operator is running.

.Procedure

. Open the terminal using the Kubernetes console or run the `exec` command from your CLI.
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For example:
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[source,shell,subs="+quotes,attributes"]
----
kubectl exec -ti _my-cluster_-zookeeper-0 -- bin/kafka-topics.sh --list --zookeeper localhost:12181
----
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Be sure to use `localhost:12181`.
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You can now run Kafka commands to ZooKeeper.
