GKE release notes (Rapid channel)

This page documents Google Kubernetes Engine version updates in the Rapid release channel.

For all Google Kubernetes Engine version updates, fixes, known issues, or new features, see release notes.

For more detailed information about security-related known issues, see the security bulletin page.

To view release notes for versions prior to 2020, see the Release notes archive.

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June 18, 2025

Change

(2025-R26) Version updates

  • Version 1.33.1-gke.1584000 is now the default version for cluster creation in the Rapid channel.
  • The following versions are now available in the Rapid channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Rapid channel:
    • 1.30.12-gke.1168000
    • 1.31.9-gke.1044001
    • 1.33.1-gke.1386000
    • 1.33.1-gke.1545000
  • Auto-upgrade targets are now available for the following minor versions:
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.30.12-gke.1208000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.30 to version 1.31.9-gke.1119000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.32 to version 1.33.1-gke.1584000 with this release.
  • The following patch-only version auto-upgrade targets are now available for clusters with maintenance exclusions or other factors preventing minor version upgrades:
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.30 to version 1.30.12-gke.1208000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.31 to version 1.31.9-gke.1119000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.33 to version 1.33.1-gke.1584000 with this release.

March 05, 2025

Change

(2025-R09) Version updates

February 11, 2025

Change

(2025-R06) Version updates

  • Version 1.32.1-gke.1200003 is now the default version for cluster creation in the Rapid channel.
  • The following versions are now available in the Rapid channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Rapid channel:
    • 1.28.15-gke.1641000
    • 1.28.15-gke.1673000
    • 1.28.15-gke.1720000
    • 1.29.13-gke.1006000
    • 1.30.9-gke.1009000
    • 1.31.5-gke.1023000
    • 1.32.0-gke.1448000
  • Auto-upgrade targets are now available for the following minor versions:
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.29.13-gke.1038000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.30.9-gke.1046000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.30 to version 1.31.5-gke.1068000 with this release.
  • The following patch-only version auto-upgrade targets are now available for clusters with maintenance exclusions or other factors preventing minor version upgrades:
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.29.13-gke.1038000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.30 to version 1.30.9-gke.1046000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.31 to version 1.31.5-gke.1068000 with this release.

February 06, 2025

Change

(2025-R05) Version updates

  • Version 1.31.5-gke.1068000 is now the default version for cluster creation in the Rapid channel.
  • The following versions are now available in the Rapid channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Rapid channel:
    • 1.28.15-gke.1612000
    • 1.29.12-gke.1270000
    • 1.30.9-gke.1027000
    • 1.31.4-gke.1372000
    • 1.32.0-gke.1538000
    • 1.32.1-gke.1200000
  • Auto-upgrade targets are now available for the following minor versions:
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.28.15-gke.1641000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.29.13-gke.1006000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.30 to version 1.31.5-gke.1023000 with this release.
  • The following patch-only version auto-upgrade targets are now available for clusters with maintenance exclusions or other factors preventing minor version upgrades:
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.28.15-gke.1641000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.29.13-gke.1006000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.31 to version 1.31.5-gke.1023000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.32 to version 1.32.1-gke.1200003 with this release.

September 11, 2024

Change

(2024-R35) Version updates

  • Version 1.31.0-gke.1506000 is now the default version for cluster creation in the Rapid channel.
  • The following versions are now available in the Rapid channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Rapid channel:
    • 1.27.16-gke.1234000
    • 1.27.16-gke.1234001
    • 1.27.16-gke.1258000
    • 1.28.13-gke.1024000
    • 1.28.13-gke.1042000
    • 1.29.8-gke.1031000
    • 1.29.8-gke.1057000
    • 1.30.4-gke.1129000
    • 1.30.4-gke.1213000
    • 1.31.0-gke.1058000
    • 1.31.0-gke.1324000
  • Auto-upgrade targets are now available for the following minor versions:
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.27.16-gke.1287000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.28.13-gke.1049000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.29.8-gke.1096000 with this release.
  • The following patch-only version auto-upgrade targets are now available for clusters with maintenance exclusions or other factors preventing minor version upgrades:
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.16-gke.1287000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.28.13-gke.1049000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.29.8-gke.1096000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.31 to version 1.31.0-gke.1506000 with this release.

May 17, 2024

Change

(2024-R14) Version updates

There are no version updates for 2024-R14.

(2024-R15) Version updates

May 01, 2024

Feature

New features in 1.30

The following features are new in Kubernetes 1.30:

January 26, 2024

Change

(2024-R02) Version updates

  • Version 1.29.0-gke.1381000 is now the default version in the Rapid channel.
  • The following versions are now available in the Rapid channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Rapid channel:
    • 1.24.17-gke.2364000
    • 1.24.17-gke.2472000
    • 1.25.16-gke.1041000
    • 1.26.11-gke.1055000
    • 1.27.8-gke.1067000
    • 1.28.3-gke.1203001
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.16-gke.1268000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.26.12-gke.1111000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.27.9-gke.1092000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.28.3-gke.1286000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.28.3-gke.1286000 with this release.

January 11, 2024

Deprecated

Removed SHA-1 certificate support

  • Starting from version 1.29, GKE no longer supports webhook backends that use TLS certificates signed with the insecure SHA-1 algorithm. To prevent impact on your clusters, you must replace incompatible certificates of webhook servers and extension API servers before upgrading your clusters to version 1.29.
  • GKE will not auto-upgrade clusters with webhook backends using incompatible certificates to 1.29 until you replace the certificates or until version 1.28 reaches end of life. For more information, refer to Ensure compatibility of TLS certificates before upgrading to GKE 1.29.

July 07, 2023

Change

(2023-R15) Version updates

  • Version 1.27.2-gke.2100 is now the default version in the Rapid channel.
  • The following versions are now available in the Rapid channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Rapid channel:
    • 1.22.17-gke.12700
    • 1.23.17-gke.7000
    • 1.24.14-gke.2100
    • 1.25.10-gke.1400
    • 1.26.5-gke.1400
    • 1.27.2-gke.1200
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.17-gke.14100 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.7700 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.14-gke.2700 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.10-gke.2100 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.26.5-gke.2100 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.5-gke.2100 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.2-gke.2100 with this release.

May 09, 2023

Change

(2023-R10) Version updates

  • Version 1.26.3-gke.1000 is now the default version.
  • The following versions are now available in the Rapid channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Rapid channel:
    • 1.22.17-gke.7500
    • 1.23.17-gke.300
    • 1.24.12-gke.1000
    • 1.25.8-gke.500
    • 1.26.3-gke.400
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.17-gke.8000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.1700 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.13-gke.500 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.8-gke.1000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.8-gke.1000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.3-gke.1000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.1-gke.400 with this release.

January 13, 2023

Change

(2023-R02) Version updates

  • Version 1.25.5-gke.1500 is now the default version in the Rapid channel.
  • The following versions are now available in the Rapid channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Rapid channel:
    • 1.21.14-gke.14100
    • 1.22.15-gke.2500
    • 1.23.14-gke.401
    • 1.24.7-gke.900
    • 1.25.4-gke.2100
    • 1.26.0-gke.1500
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.20 to version 1.21.14-gke.14600 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.16-gke.1300 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.14-gke.1800 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.8-gke.401 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.8-gke.401 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.5-gke.1500 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.0-gke.2000 with this release.

August 04, 2022

Change

(2022-R19) Version updates

  • The following versions are now available in the Rapid channel:

  • Version 1.23.8-gke.1900 is now the default version in the Rapid channel.

  • The following versions are no longer available in the Rapid channel:

    • 1.21.14-gke.700
    • 1.22.10-gke.600
    • 1.22.11-gke.400
    • 1.23.6-gke.2200
    • 1.23.7-gke.1400
    • 1.23.8-gke.400
    • 1.24.2-gke.300

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.19 to version 1.20.15-gke.13400 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.20 to version 1.21.14-gke.2100 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.12-gke.300 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.8-gke.1900 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.23.8-gke.1900 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.2-gke.1900 with this release.

March 07, 2022

Change

(2022-R4) Version updates

  • Version 1.22.6-gke.1500 is now the default version in the Rapid channel.

  • The following versions are now available in the Rapid channel:

  • The following versions are no longer available in the Rapid channel:

    • 1.21.9-gke.300
    • 1.21.9-gke.1001
    • 1.22.4-gke.1501
    • 1.22.6-gke.300
    • 1.23.3-gke.1100

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.20 to 1.21.9-gke.1002 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.21.9-gke.1002 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to 1.22.6-gke.1000 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to 1.23.4-gke.300 with this release.

February 10, 2022

Fixed

Versions 1.21.9-gke.300, 1.22.6-gke.300, and 1.23.2-gke.300 contain a fix for a race condition which could result in erroneously detaching all endpoints from network endpoint groups for a short period.

January 21, 2022

Change

New API versions

  • flowcontrol.apiserver.k8s.io/v1beta2 FlowSchema, PriorityLevelConfiguration
  • autoscaling/v2 HorizontalPodAutoscaler
Feature

Notable features

Beta: PodSecurity admission

PodSecurity replaces the deprecated PodSecurityPolicy admission controller (which will be removed in 1.25). PodSecurity is an admission controller that enforces Pod Security Standards on Pods in a Namespace based on specific namespace labels that set the enforcement level. In 1.23, the PodSecurity feature is enabled by default, and applies to namespaces that opt into enforcement. Refer to the PodSecurity documentation and PodSecurityPolicy migration guide for more information.

October 01, 2021

Change

Notable changes and bug fixes in 1.22

  • The terminationGracePeriodSeconds field on pod specs and container probes should not be negative. Negative values of terminationGracePeriodSeconds will be treated as the value 1 on the delete path. Immutable field validation will be relaxed in order to update negative values. In a future release, negative values will not be permitted. (#98866)

  • As a mitigation for CVE-2021-25740, newly created Kubernetes 1.22 clusters no longer include write access to the Endpoints API in the edit and admin roles by default. Existing clusters upgraded to Kubernetes 1.22 retain previous permissions in those roles. For instructions to re-add Endpoints write access to the edit and admin roles in newly created 1.22 clusters, refer to the RBAC documentation.

Deprecated

Deprecated API versions

These APIs are still served in version 1.22 but are in a deprecation period, and will be removed in 1.25:

  • PodSecurityPolicy
    • policy/v1beta1 PodSecurityPolicy
    • Deprecated in 1.21 with removal targeted for version 1.25.
  • The following Beta versions of graduated APIs will be removed in 1.25 in favor of their GA versions:
    • discovery.k8s.io/v1beta1 EndpointSlice, deprecated since 1.21
    • policy/v1beta1 PodDisruptionBudget, deprecated since 1.21
    • batch/v1beta1 CronJob, deprecated since 1.21

August 20, 2021

Change

(2021-R27) Version updates

  • Version 1.20.8-gke.2100 is now the default version in the Rapid channel.
  • The following control plane and node versions are now available in the Rapid channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Rapid channel:
    • 1.20.8-gke.2100
    • 1.21.3-gke.900
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.20 to 1.20.8-gke.2100 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.21.3-gke.901 with this release.

May 28, 2021

Feature

1.21 Features

The following features are introduced in version 1.21:

CronJob (GA)

The CronJob API has graduated to General Availability (GA), bringing performance improvements and allowing scheduled jobs to be run using a stable API.

  • This resource is now available in the batch/v1 group/version.
  • The batch/v1beta1 group/version is deprecated, and will be removed in version 1.25. See the migration guide for details.

PodDisruptionBudget (GA)

The PodDisruptionBudget has graduated to GA, allowing pod evictions to be controlled using a stable API.

  • This resource is now available in the policy/v1 group/version.
  • The policy/v1beta1 group/version is deprecated, and will be removed in version 1.25. See the migration guide for details.

EndpointSlice (GA)

The EndpointSlice API has graduated to GA, bringing performance improvements over the v1 Endpoints API.

  • This more scalable API for service discovery is now enabled on all clusters and is promoted to discovery.k8s.io/v1.
  • The discovery.k8s.io/v1beta1 group/version is deprecated, and will be removed in version 1.25. See the migration guide for details.

Default namespace label (Beta)

Namespace API objects now have a kubernetes.io/metadata.name label matching their metadata.name field to allow selecting any namespace by its name using a label selector. This can be used for objects which select namespaces by label, such as admission webhooks and network policies.

Bound service account token volumes (Beta)

  • The API credentials injected into containers at /var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token are now time-limited, auto-refreshed, and invalidated when the containing pod is deleted.
  • By default, injected tokens are given an extended lifetime so they remain valid even after a new refreshed token is provided. The metric serviceaccount_stale_tokens_total and the audit annotation authentication.k8s.io/stale-token can be used to monitor for workloads that depend on the extended lifetime and are continuing to use tokens even after a refreshed token is provided to the container.
  • Clients should reload the token from disk periodically (once per minute is recommended) to ensure they use the refreshed token. k8s.io/client-go version 11.0.0+ and 0.15.0+ reload tokens automatically.

March 23, 2021

Change

Windows Server, version 1909 is reaching end of support on May 11, 2021. Newer Windows Server image versions are available in GKE versions 1.19.8-gke.1600+ and 1.20.4-gke.500+.

December 14, 2020

Change

(R41) Version updates

  • Version 1.18.12-gke.1201 is now available in the Rapid channel.
  • Auto-upgrading nodes in the Rapid channel automatically upgrade from version 1.18 to version 1.18.12-gke.1200 with this release.

July 13, 2020

Change

(R23) Version updates

April 07, 2020

Change

1.16.8-gke.8 is now available in the Rapid release channel. The node image for Container-Optimized OS is updated to cos-77-12371-208-0.

March 16, 2020

Change

1.16.6-gke.13 is now available in the Rapid release channel.

February 11, 2020

Change

1.16.4-gke.30 is now available in the Rapid release channel.

Important: Existing clusters enrolled in the Rapid release channel will be auto-upgraded to this version.

January 22, 2020

Change

1.16.4-gke.22 is now available in the Rapid release channel.