Kafka Metadata Quorum Check Fails During Controller Setup – Connection Refused to Broker

Hi Confluent Community,

I’m running into an issue while setting up a new KRaft-based Kafka cluster using Ansible and the confluent.platform.kafka_controller role. The deployment is failing at the **“Check Kafka Metadata Quorum”

Cluster is in AWS outposts. Ansible control node is in AWS Region. both have connectivity. and we are using Route 53 private hosted zone

Below is my Hosts.yaml
**
all:

vars:

ansible_connection: ssh

validate_hosts: false

force_offline_installation: true

ansible_become: true

ansible_user: abc

ansible_ssh_pass: abc

ansible_sudo_pass: abc

ansible_ssh_common_args: -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no

### Airgap Installation ###

installation_method: archive

archive_destination_path: /app/confluent

confluent_cli_base_path: /app/confluent-cli

use_local_rpms: true

install_java: false

custom_java_path: /usr/lib/jvm/java-17-openjdk-17.0.14.0.7-2.el9.x86_64

confluent_package_version: 7.8.0

skip_package_installation: true

confluent_archive_file_source: “/tmp/confluent-7.8.0.tar.gz”

confluent_archive_file_remote: false

confluent_cli_archive_file_source: “/tmp/confluent_4.45.1_linux_amd64.tar.gz”

confluent_cli_archive_file_remote: false

common_extra_packages:

  - python3-cryptography    

### License for all components ###

kafka_controller_custom_properties:

confluent.license: abc
kafka_broker_custom_properties:

confluent.license:
log.dirs: “/app/data/kafka”

num.partitions: 3

min.insync.replicas: 2

default.replication.factor: 3

auto.create.topics.enable: false

schema_registry_custom_properties: confluent.license:

kafka_connect_custom_properties:

confluent.license:

kafka_connect_custom_properties:

confluent.license:

control_center_custom_properties:

confluent.license:

kafka_controller:

hosts:

kafka-controller-1.sit.kafka.internal:

ansible_host: kafka-controller-1.sit.kafka.internal

kafka_broker:

hosts:

kafka-broker-1.sit.kafka.internal:

ansible_host: kafka-broker-1.sit.kafka.internal

kafka_connect:

hosts:

kafka-connect-1.sit.kafka.internal:

ansible_host: kafka-connect-1.sit.kafka.internal

vars:

kafka_connect_plugins:

  - confluentinc/kafka-connect-datagen:latest

schema_registry:

hosts:

kafka-schema-registry-1.sit.kafka.internal:

ansible_host: kafka-schema-registry-1.sit.kafka.internal

control_center:

hosts:

kafka-control-center-1.sit.kafka.internal:

ansible_host: kafka-control-center-1.sit.kafka.internal

This is where it crashes

TASK [confluent.platform.kafka_controller : Kafka Started] ***********************************************************************************************************************************
changed: [kafka-controller-1.sit.kafka.internal]

TASK [confluent.platform.kafka_controller : Wait for Controller health checks to complete] ***************************************************************************************************
included: /root/.ansible/collections/ansible_collections/confluent/platform/roles/kafka_controller/tasks/health_check.yml for kafka-controller-1.sit.kafka.internal

TASK [confluent.platform.kafka_controller : Check Kafka Metadata Quorum using bootstrap controller] ******************************************************************************************
ok: [kafka-controller-1.sit.kafka.internal]

TASK [confluent.platform.kafka_controller : Set Hostnames and Ports] *************************************************************************************************************************
ok: [kafka-controller-1.sit.kafka.internal]

TASK [confluent.platform.kafka_controller : Set Server/Controller Host and Port values] ******************************************************************************************************
ok: [kafka-controller-1.sit.kafka.internal]

TASK [confluent.platform.kafka_controller : Check Kafka Metadata Quorum] *********************************************************************************************************************
fatal: [kafka-controller-1.sit.kafka.internal]: FAILED! => {“changed”: false, “cmd”: “/app/confluent/confluent-7.8.0/bin/kafka-metadata-quorum --bootstrap-server kafka-broker-1.sit.kafka.internal:9091 --command-config /app/confluent/etc/controller/client.properties describe --replication\n”, “delta”: “0:01:01.315892”, “end”: “2025-12-04 16:14:38.633254”, “msg”: “non-zero return code”, “rc”: 1, “start”: “2025-12-04 16:13:37.317362”, “stderr”: "[2025-12-04 16:13:38,327] WARN [AdminClient clientId=adminclient-1] Connection to node -1 (kafka-broker-1.sit.kafka.internal could not be established. Node may not be available.