Issue 

A Redpanda Broker that does not have tiered-storage enabled is  failing on startup with the following error :

 Failure during startup: std::runtime_error (configuration property cloud_storage_secret_key is not set

 

Detail 

Even though tiered storage is not enabled ... 

e.g  parameter  cloud_storage_enabled is set to false. + other relevant tiered-storage parameters are not set...

The broker is reporting 
 Failure during startup: std::runtime_error (configuration property cloud_storage_secret_key is not set

This is due to the fact that iceberg topics were enabled ..via  cluster config parameter 
iceberg_enabled

To use iceberg topics, tiered-storage must be enabled. 
This is detailed in the iceberg-topics prerequisites 

 

Resolution

If you want to enable iceberg topics, first enabled tiered-storage following :  https://docs.redpanda.com/current/manage/tiered-storage/
then for iceberg topics follow 
https://docs.redpanda.com/current/manage/iceberg/about-iceberg-topics/

If iceberg topics and tiered-storage are not needed then set iceberg_enabled to false