diff --git a/bin/install-kafka.sh b/bin/install-kafka.sh
--- a/bin/install-kafka.sh
+++ b/bin/install-kafka.sh
@@ -3,8 +3,8 @@
 set -xe
 
 SCALA_VERSION=2.12
-KAFKA_VERSION=2.1.1
-KAFKA_CHECKSUM=a2e8168e8de6b45e8fca1f2883f0744d3c5a939b70d8a47a5428b72188501d4c2fc11bc35759f2392680d4e8ecf2fa9d0e518e77fd28393afba22194ad018b10
+KAFKA_VERSION=2.4.0
+KAFKA_CHECKSUM=53b52f86ea56c9fac62046524f03f75665a089ea2dae554aefe3a3d2694f2da88b5ba8725d8be55f198ba80695443559ed9de7c0b2a2817f7a6141008ff79f49
 
 KAFKA_APP="kafka_${SCALA_VERSION}-${KAFKA_VERSION}"
 TARBALL="${KAFKA_APP}.tgz"
diff --git a/swh/journal/tests/conftest.py b/swh/journal/tests/conftest.py
--- a/swh/journal/tests/conftest.py
+++ b/swh/journal/tests/conftest.py
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
 
 from pathlib import Path
 from pytest_kafka import (
-    make_zookeeper_process, make_kafka_server
+    make_zookeeper_process, make_kafka_server, ZOOKEEPER_CONFIG_TEMPLATE,
 )
 
 from swh.model.hashutil import hash_to_bytes
@@ -167,9 +167,12 @@
 KAFKA_BIN = str(KAFKA_SCRIPTS / 'kafka-server-start.sh')
 ZOOKEEPER_BIN = str(KAFKA_SCRIPTS / 'zookeeper-server-start.sh')
 
+ZK_CONFIG_TEMPLATE = ZOOKEEPER_CONFIG_TEMPLATE + '\nadmin.enableServer=false\n'
 
 # Those defines fixtures
-zookeeper_proc = make_zookeeper_process(ZOOKEEPER_BIN, scope='session')
+zookeeper_proc = make_zookeeper_process(ZOOKEEPER_BIN,
+                                        zk_config_template=ZK_CONFIG_TEMPLATE,
+                                        scope='session')
 os.environ['KAFKA_LOG4J_OPTS'] = \
     '-Dlog4j.configuration=file:%s/log4j.properties' % \
     os.path.dirname(__file__)