Guest environment release notes

This page documents updates to the guest environment, which is a set of scripts, daemons, and binaries that read metadata server content to ensure instances function correctly on Compute Engine. The central component of the guest environment is the guest agent, which handles tasks like account management, OS Login integration, and network interface management. For more information about the guest environment, see Guest environment.

Check this page for announcements about new or updated features, bug fixes, known issues, and deprecated functionality.

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March 30, 2026

Feature

Version 20260329.00 of the guest agent is now available for all supported operating systems. This version introduces the following features:

  • A new local extension, guest telemetry, is introduced, which collects important telemetry data about Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) running on a compute instance. For more information about the telemetry the guest agent collects, see System telemetry collection.
  • The enable_local_plugins configuration now defaults to true.
  • A new configuration flag connection_type is introduced to the PluginConfig section of the guest agent configuration file. This option forces a specific connection type when the guest agent connects to the extensions it is managing. Supported connection types are UDS and TCP.
Fixed

Version 20260329.00 of the guest agent is now available for all supported operating systems. This version introduces the following fixes:

  • The guest agent no longer terminates abruptly when an extension's gRPC client is null. Instead, it logs an error.
  • The credentials setup for HTTPS access to the metadata server was moved to prevent it from blocking the guest agent's readiness signal. This mitigates an issue on machines without vTPM, where the guest agent can take an extra 10 seconds to signal that it's ready.
  • The core plugin now logs during the startup phase to provide a better signal on when it's started.
  • Locally bundled extensions are now direct child processes of the agent manager process. This helps resolve an issue where plugins remain as running processes but fail to start correctly.

March 05, 2026

Feature

Version 20260228.00 of the guest agent is now available for Debian 12, AlmaLinux 9, CentOS Stream 9, Oracle Linux 9, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, and Rock Linux 9. To review the features and fixes included in version 20260228.00 of the guest agent, see the March 2, 2026 release notes.

March 04, 2026

Feature

Version 20260228.00 of the guest agent is now available for Windows. To review the features and fixes included in version 20260228.00 of the guest agent, see the March 2, 2026 release notes.

March 03, 2026

Feature

Version 20260228.00 of the guest agent is now available for Debian 11, AlmaLinux 8, CentOS Stream 8, Oracle Linux 8, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, and Rock Linux 8. To review the features and fixes included in version 20260228.00 of the guest agent, see the March 2, 2026 release notes.

March 02, 2026

Fixed

Version 20260228.00 of the guest agent includes the following fixes:

  • The guest agent is now able to add users to the Administrator group on different locales on Windows.
  • The guest agent now signals itself ready only after the network setup has fully completed. This should prevent the guest agent from hitting race conditions with custom routing solutions that depend on the guest agent service.
  • The guest agent no longer spams metadata SSH key errors when a key is incorrectly formatted.
  • The guest agent now ensures proper reconnection of the primary NIC after a configuration rollback, specifically when NetworkManager is active. This resolves an issue where the NIC might not come back online in such scenarios.
  • The guest agent now applies the value of the following configuration flags correctly: Daemons.network_daemon and NetworkInterfaces.vlan_setup_enabled.
Feature

Version 20260228.00 of the guest agent is now available for Debian 13, AlmaLinux 10, CentOS Stream 10, Oracle Linux 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10, and Rock Linux 10. This version introduces the following features:

  • Supports bootstrapping credentials for the HTTPS endpoint for the metadata server by default. For more information about the HTTPS metadata server endpoint, see HTTPS metadata server endpoints.
  • Includes a cleanup job that runs once a day and each time the guest agent manager service initializes. This cleanup job ensures that leftover plugin files and states are properly cleaned up.
  • Supports dynamically starting locally installed extensions. This feature is disabled by default, but it can be toggled by setting the enable_local_plugins flag to true in the guest agent configuration file.