GKE release notes

This page documents production updates to Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). You can periodically check this page for announcements about new or updated features, bug fixes, known issues, and deprecated functionality.

This page includes release notes for all channels and releases.

Current versions

The following table lists the current versions for each release channel. To learn more about the designations in this table, see What versions are available in a channel. For general information on versioning and upgrades, see GKE versioning and support and About GKE cluster upgrades.

GKE Release Channel Rapid Regular Stable Extended No Channel (Static)
Available minor versions 1.31 to 1.34 1.31 to 1.33 1.31 to 1.33 1.28 to 1.33 1.31 to 1.33
Recommended auto-upgrade target 1.33.5-gke.1162000 1.33.5-gke.1080000 1.33.4-gke.1245000 1.28.15-gke.2730000 1.33.4-gke.1245000
Auto-upgrade targets
  • 1.31.13-gke.1023000
  • 1.32.9-gke.1108000
  • 1.33.5-gke.1162000
  • 1.34.1-gke.1293000
  • 1.31.12-gke.1265000
  • 1.32.9-gke.1072000
  • 1.33.5-gke.1080000
  • 1.31.11-gke.1036000
  • 1.32.8-gke.1170000
  • 1.33.4-gke.1245000
  • 1.28.15-gke.2730000
  • 1.29.15-gke.1971000
  • 1.30.14-gke.1150000
  • 1.31.12-gke.1265000
  • 1.32.9-gke.1072000
  • 1.33.5-gke.1080000
  • 1.31.12-gke.1265000
  • 1.32.9-gke.1072000
  • 1.33.4-gke.1245000
Default patch version for cluster creation 1.34.1-gke.1293000 1.33.5-gke.1080000 1.33.4-gke.1245000 1.33.5-gke.1080000 1.33.5-gke.1080000
COS version of default patch version cos-121-18867-199-80 cos-121-18867-199-43 cos-121-18867-199-43 cos-121-18867-199-43 cos-121-18867-199-43

For information on the current minor versions rollout and support schedule, see the GKE release schedule. To find all the patch versions available in a channel, check available and default versions.

This table also lists the Container-Optimized OS version that corresponds to the channel's default patch version. To upgrade a cluster to a specific image version, see Map Container-Optimized OS node image versions to GKE patch versions.

Other resources

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.

You can see the latest product updates for all of Google Cloud on the Google Cloud page, browse and filter all release notes in the Google Cloud console, or programmatically access release notes in BigQuery.

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August 05, 2025

Feature

The M4 machine series is generally available in GKE Standard clusters.

July 28, 2025

Feature

In GKE version 1.32.2-gke.1359000 and later, you can now configure collection scheduling for single-host and multi-host TPU node pools by using compute classes. Collection scheduling lets you set a Service Level Objective (SLO) for your TPU workloads.

Feature

In GKE version 1.33.2-gke.1335000 and later, the GKE Gateway controller supports Gateway API v1.3 CRDs.

June 24, 2025

Change

Starting on September 1, 2025, GKE version upgrades can proceed even if existing resources violate custom organization policy constraints. GKE allows upgrade-only operations to occur as long as the operation doesn't introduce new policy violations.

March 26, 2025

Change

(2025-R12) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters.

The following Kubernetes versions are now available for new clusters and for opt-in control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information on versioning and upgrades, see GKE versioning and support and Upgrades.

Rapid channel

Regular channel

There are no new releases in the Regular channel.

Stable channel

Extended channel

No channel

February 06, 2025

Change

(2025-R05) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters.

The following Kubernetes versions are now available for new clusters and for opt-in control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information on versioning and upgrades, see GKE versioning and support and Upgrades.

Rapid channel

  • 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.

Regular channel

  • Version 1.31.4-gke.1372000 is now the default version for cluster creation in the Regular channel.
  • The following versions are now available in the Regular channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Regular channel:
    • 1.28.15-gke.1503000
    • 1.29.12-gke.1143000
    • 1.29.12-gke.1143001
    • 1.30.8-gke.1162000
    • 1.30.8-gke.1162001
    • 1.31.4-gke.1256000
  • Auto-upgrade targets are now available for the following minor versions:
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.28.15-gke.1612000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.29.12-gke.1270000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.30.8-gke.1261000 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 Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.28.15-gke.1612000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.29.12-gke.1270000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.30 to version 1.30.8-gke.1261000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.31 to version 1.31.4-gke.1372000 with this release.

Stable channel

  • Version 1.30.8-gke.1128001 is now the default version for cluster creation in the Stable channel.
  • The following versions are now available in the Stable channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Stable channel:
    • 1.28.15-gke.1435000
    • 1.29.12-gke.1055000
    • 1.29.12-gke.1055001
    • 1.30.8-gke.1051000
    • 1.30.8-gke.1051001
  • Auto-upgrade targets are now available for the following minor versions:
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.28.15-gke.1480000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.29.12-gke.1120001 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.30.8-gke.1128001 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 Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.28.15-gke.1480000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.29.12-gke.1120001 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.30 to version 1.30.8-gke.1128001 with this release.

Extended channel

  • Version 1.31.4-gke.1372000 is now the default version for cluster creation in the Extended channel.
  • The following versions are now available in the Extended channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Extended channel:
    • 1.27.16-gke.2142000
    • 1.27.16-gke.2296000
    • 1.28.15-gke.1503000
    • 1.29.12-gke.1143000
    • 1.29.12-gke.1143001
    • 1.30.8-gke.1162000
    • 1.30.8-gke.1162001
    • 1.31.4-gke.1256000
  • 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 Extended channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.16-gke.2246000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Extended channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.28.15-gke.1612000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Extended channel will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.29.12-gke.1270000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Extended channel will be upgraded from version 1.30 to version 1.30.8-gke.1261000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Extended channel will be upgraded from version 1.31 to version 1.31.4-gke.1372000 with this release.

No channel

  • Version 1.31.4-gke.1372000 is now the default version for cluster creation.
  • The following versions are now available:
  • The following node versions are now available:
  • The following versions are no longer available:
    • 1.28.15-gke.1435000
    • 1.29.12-gke.1055000
    • 1.29.12-gke.1055001
    • 1.29.12-gke.1143000
    • 1.30.5-gke.1713000
    • 1.30.8-gke.1051001
    • 1.30.9-gke.1027000
  • Auto-upgrade targets are now available for the following minor versions:
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.28.15-gke.1612000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.29.12-gke.1270000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.30.8-gke.1128001 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 will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.28.15-gke.1612000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.29.12-gke.1270000 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.30 to version 1.30.8-gke.1128001 with this release.
    • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.31 to version 1.31.4-gke.1372000 with this release.

December 12, 2024

Change

Starting with GKE version 1.33, clusters running cgroupv1 will automatically be upgraded to cgroupv2 unless you opt out first. For more information, see Migrate nodes to cgroupv2.

November 26, 2024

Feature

Cluster autoscaler and node auto-provisioning support the C4 machine family in GKE version 1.28.15-gke.1159000, 1.29.10-gke.1227000 or later.

October 31, 2024

Fixed

Clusters that are experiencing stale endpoint resources and stale kube-dns entries are likely affected by Kubernetes issue #126578. Your cluster is most likely affected if endpoint resources consistently have incorrect Pod IPs. This issue has been fixed in the following GKE versions or later:

  • 1.28.14-gke.1115000
  • 1.29.9-gke.1207000
  • 1.30.5-gke.1171000
  • 1.31.1-gke.1414000

September 23, 2024

Security

A security issue was discovered in Kubernetes clusters with Windows nodes where BUILTIN\Users may be able to read container logs and AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users may be able to modify container logs. For more information, see the GCP-2024-054 security bulletin.

August 07, 2024

Change

(2024-R28) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters.

The following Kubernetes versions are now available for new clusters and for opt-in control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information on versioning and upgrades, see GKE versioning and support and Upgrades.

Rapid channel

  • The following versions are now available in the Rapid channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Rapid channel:
    • 1.27.15-gke.1252000
    • 1.29.6-gke.1326000
  • 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.1008000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.16-gke.1008000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.29.7-gke.1008000 with this release.

Regular channel

  • Version 1.29.6-gke.1326000 is now the default version in the Regular channel.
  • The following versions are now available in the Regular channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Regular channel:
    • 1.27.15-gke.1154000
    • 1.28.11-gke.1172000
    • 1.29.6-gke.1254000
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.27.15-gke.1252000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.15-gke.1252000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.28.11-gke.1260000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.29.6-gke.1326000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.29.6-gke.1326000 with this release.

Stable channel

Extended channel

  • Version 1.29.6-gke.1326000 is now the default version in the Extended channel.
  • The following versions are now available in the Extended channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Extended channel:
    • 1.27.15-gke.1154000
    • 1.28.11-gke.1172000
    • 1.29.6-gke.1254000
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Extended channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.15-gke.1252000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Extended channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.28.11-gke.1260000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Extended channel will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.29.6-gke.1326000 with this release.

No channel

July 26, 2024

Change

With GKE patch version 1.30.1-gke.115600 and later, if you don't specify the gpu-driver-version flag when creating new GPU node pools, then GKE automatically installs the default GPU driver version that corresponds to the GKE version. If you prefer to manually install the GPU driver, set gpu-driver-version=disabled. To learn more, see Create a GPU node pool.

July 15, 2024

Security

The following vulnerabilities were discovered in the Linux kernel that can lead to a privilege escalation on Container-Optimized OS and Ubuntu nodes:

  • CVE-2024-26809

For more details, see the GCP-2024-042 security bulletin.

July 08, 2024

Change

(2024-R23) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters.

The following Kubernetes versions are now available for new clusters and for opt-in control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information on versioning and upgrades, see GKE versioning and support and Upgrades.

No channel

  • Version 1.29.4-gke.1043004 is now the default version.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.26.15-gke.1320002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.15-gke.1320002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.27.13-gke.1070002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.13-gke.1070002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.28.9-gke.1289002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.29.4-gke.1043004 with this release.

Stable channel

  • Version 1.27.13-gke.1070002 is now the default version in the Stable channel.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.26.15-gke.1090004 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.15-gke.1090004 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.27.13-gke.1070002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.13-gke.1070002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.28.9-gke.1069002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.29.4-gke.1043004 with this release.

Regular channel

  • Version 1.29.4-gke.1043004 is now the default version in the Regular channel.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.26.15-gke.1320002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.15-gke.1320002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.13-gke.1201002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.28.9-gke.1289002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.28.9-gke.1289002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.29.4-gke.1043004 with this release.

Rapid channel

  • Version 1.30.1-gke.1329003 is now the default version in the Rapid channel.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.26.15-gke.1404002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.15-gke.1404002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.14-gke.1059002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.28.10-gke.1089002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.29.5-gke.1091002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.29.5-gke.1091002 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.30 to version 1.30.1-gke.1329003 with this release.

June 12, 2024

Security

The following vulnerabilities were discovered in the Linux kernel that can lead to a privilege escalation on Container-Optimized OS and Ubuntu nodes:

  • CVE-2024-26584

For more information, see the GCP-2024-035 security bulletin.

May 02, 2024

Feature

The new release of the GKE Gateway controller (2024-R1) is now generally available. With this release, the GKE Gateway controller will provide the following new capabilities and fixes:

New capabilities:

  • Gateway API CRDs v1.0.0
  • Cloud Armor backend security policy support for Regional external Gateways
  • Self-managed certificates with Certificate Manager on Regional internal & external Gateways
  • Google-managed certificates with Certificate Manager on Regional internal & external Gateways [Preview]

Bug fixes:

  • Fixed missing permissions to MCI service agent role for regional SSL policy

To learn more about our GKE Gateway controller capabilities, see the supported capabilities per GatewayClass.

May 01, 2024

Feature

New APIs in 1.30

The following APIs are new in Kubernetes 1.30:

  • admissionregistration.k8s.io/v1 ValidatingAdmissionPolicyBinding and ValidatingAdmissionPolicy

April 10, 2024

Feature

The N4 machine family is generally available in GKE Standard clusters running on GKE 1.29.3-gke.1121000 and later. You can select this family by using the --machine-type flag when creating a cluster or node pool. The following limitations apply:

  • Confidential GKE nodes is not supported.
  • Local SSD is not supported.
  • hyperdisk-balanced is the only supported boot disk type.
Change

This note was updated on June 3, 2024. The GKE version required for N4 machine type support has been updated.

March 11, 2024

Feature

Private clusters created on GKE versions 1.29.0-gke.1384000 and later use Private Service Connect (PSC) for nodes to privately communicate with the control plane. There is no price increase for using GKE private clusters running on PSC.

For private clusters created with a different GKE version, the clusters continue to use VPC Peering for node-to-control plane communication.

Feature

Opportunistic bursting and lower Pod minimums are now available on newly created GKE Autopilot clusters at version 1.29.2-gke.1060000 or later, and on existing clusters created at 1.26 or later that have been fully upgraded (including all nodes) to 1.29.2-gke.1060000 or later. To learn more, see Configure Pod bursting on GKE.

March 04, 2024

Feature

GPU workloads running in Autopilot mode can now be configured using the Accelerator Compute Class. This configuration supports resource reservations, Compute Engine committed use discounts, and a new pricing model in GKE versions 1.28.6-gke.1095000 and later, and 1.29.1-gke.1143000 and later.

February 13, 2024

Change

(2024-R04) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters.

The following Kubernetes versions are now available for new clusters and for opt-in control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information on versioning and upgrades, see GKE versioning and support and Upgrades.

No channel

Stable channel

  • There are no new releases in the Stable release channel.

Regular channel

  • The following versions are now available in the Regular channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Regular channel:
    • 1.25.16-gke.1041000
    • 1.26.11-gke.1055000
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular 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 Regular 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 Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.12-gke.1111000 with this release.

Rapid channel

  • The following versions are now available in the Rapid channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Rapid channel:
    • 1.25.16-gke.1360000
    • 1.26.13-gke.1052000
    • 1.27.10-gke.1055000
    • 1.28.6-gke.1095000
    • 1.28.6-gke.1289000
    • 1.29.1-gke.1016000
    • 1.29.1-gke.1425000
  • 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.1460000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.26.13-gke.1144000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.27.10-gke.1152000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.10-gke.1152000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.29 to version 1.29.0-gke.1381000 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.

December 19, 2023

Feature

You can now modify the vm.max_map_count Linux kernel attribute for nodes in a GKE Standard cluster node pool using the node system configuration. To learn more, see Sysctl configuration options.

December 12, 2023

Change

(2023-R26) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters.

The following Kubernetes versions are now available for new clusters and for opt-in control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information on versioning and upgrades, see GKE versioning and support and Upgrades.

No channel

Stable channel

There are no new releases in the Stable channel.

Regular channel

  • The following versions are now available in the Regular channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Regular channel:
    • 1.24.17-gke.200
    • 1.27.3-gke.1700
    • 1.27.5-gke.200
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.17-gke.2230000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.17-gke.2230000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.7-gke.1056000 with this release.

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.2266000
    • 1.25.15-gke.1115000
    • 1.26.10-gke.1101000
    • 1.27.7-gke.1121000
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.17-gke.2347000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.16-gke.1020000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.26.10-gke.1235000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.10-gke.1235000 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.

September 29, 2023

Fixed

This is a follow-up message to the release note regarding blue-green upgrades from September 18, 2023. You can now resume upgrading clusters with the blue-green upgrade strategy as the issue with rollback functionality has been fixed. GKE is no longer blocking automatic upgrades due to this issue.

September 07, 2023

Security

Three vulnerabilities (CVE-2023-3676, CVE-2023-3955, CVE-2023-3893) have been discovered in Kubernetes where a user that can create Pods on Windows nodes may be able to escalate to admin privileges on those nodes. These vulnerabilities affect the Windows versions of Kubelet and the Kubernetes CSI proxy.

GKE clusters are only affected if they include Windows nodes.

For more information, see the GCP-2023-026 security bulletin.

August 25, 2023

Feature

GKE now delivers insights and recommendations to ensure your workloads are ready for disruption using features such as Pod Disruption Budgets. To learn more, see Ensure stateful workloads are disruption-ready.

July 24, 2023

Change

In new Autopilot clusters running GKE version 1.27 and later, GKE assigns IP addresses for GKE Services from a Google-managed range: 34.118.224.0/20 by default. With this feature, you don't need to specify your own IP address range for Services. For more information, see Subnet secondary IP address range for Services.

Feature

GKE Autopilot supports extended duration Pods from 1.27 or later with the cluster-autoscaler.kubernetes.io/safe-to-evict=false annotation. To learn more, see how to extend the run time of Autopilot Pods.

July 11, 2023

Feature

Starting in GKE version 1.27, cluster autoscaler always considers Compute Engine Reservations when making the scale-up decisions. The node pools with matching unused reservations are prioritized when choosing the node pool to scale up, even when the node pool is not the most efficient one. Additionally, unused reservations are always prioritized when balancing multi-zonal scale-ups.

For more information, see how to use cluster autoscaler.

June 01, 2023

Feature

Agones on GKE users will get recommendations and insights if they did not install the Agones controller on dedicated nodes.

April 11, 2023

Change

In GKE 1.27 and later, GKE nodes will not keep compressed image layers in containerd's content store once they have been unpacked, by setting discard_unpacked_layers=true in containerd configuration. This change will not impact workloads running as Kubernetes Pods and Containers. However, if your workload relies on the image layers in containerd's content store, please make sure your workload can handle the case where image layers are missing.

February 10, 2023

Change

(2023-R04) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

The following Kubernetes versions are now available for new clusters and for opt-in control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information on versioning and upgrades, see GKE versioning and support and Upgrades.

No channel

  • Version 1.24.9-gke.2000 is now the default version.
  • The following control plane and node versions are now available:
  • The following control plane versions are no longer available:
    • 1.21.14-gke.5300
    • 1.22.17-gke.1400
    • 1.22.17-gke.1900
    • 1.24.7-gke.900
    • 1.24.8-gke.401
    • 1.25.5-gke.1500
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.20 to version 1.21.14-gke.7100 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.21.14-gke.7100 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled 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 will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.8-gke.2000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.5-gke.2000 with this release.

Stable channel

  • Version 1.21.14-gke.14600 is now available in the Stable channel.
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Stable channel:
    • 1.21.14-gke.5300
    • 1.21.14-gke.7100
    • 1.21.14-gke.8500
    • 1.22.15-gke.2500
    • 1.23.13-gke.900
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.20 to version 1.21.14-gke.14100 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.16-gke.2000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.14-gke.1800 with this release.

Regular channel

  • Version 1.24.9-gke.2000 is now the default version in the Regular channel.
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Regular channel:
    • 1.21.14-gke.7100
    • 1.21.14-gke.8500
    • 1.22.15-gke.1000
    • 1.22.15-gke.2500
    • 1.22.16-gke.1300
    • 1.23.14-gke.401
    • 1.24.8-gke.2000
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular 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 Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.16-gke.2000 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular 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 Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.9-gke.2000 with this release.

Rapid channel

  • Version 1.25.6-gke.200 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:
    • 1.22.16-gke.2000
    • 1.22.17-gke.1400
    • 1.22.17-gke.1900
    • 1.23.15-gke.1400
    • 1.23.15-gke.1900
    • 1.24.8-gke.2000
    • 1.24.9-gke.1500
    • 1.24.9-gke.2000
    • 1.25.5-gke.2000
  • 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.3100 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.16-gke.200 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.9-gke.3200 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.9-gke.3200 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.6-gke.200 with this release.

February 07, 2023

Announcement

For clusters running on GKE version 1.21—which reaches end of life on January 31, 2023—you can apply a one-time maintenance exclusion to prevent the cluster from being upgraded until April 30, 2023. For more information, see the note at When does GKE resume automatic upgrades?

January 09, 2023

Change

The release notes for 1.26 available in the Rapid channel were modified with an additional notable change:

January 05, 2023

Deprecated

Deprecated API versions

These APIs are still served in version 1.26 but are in a deprecation period:

  • The following Beta versions of graduated APIs will be removed in 1.27 in favor of newer versions:
    • storage.k8s.io/v1beta1 CSIStorageCapacity
    • deprecated since 1.24
    • use storage.k8s.io/v1 instead, available since 1.24
  • The following Beta versions of graduated APIs will be removed in 1.29 in favor of newer versions:
    • flowcontrol.apiserver.k8s.io/v1beta2 FlowSchema, PriorityLevelConfiguration
    • deprecated since 1.26
    • use flowcontrol.apiserver.k8s.io/v1beta3 instead, available since 1.26

December 16, 2022

Feature

Global external HTTP(S) load balancer is now supported with the GKE Gateway controller in Preview. You can now configure GKE clusters with control plane version 1.24 or later in Rapid channel to use a global external HTTP(S) load balancer to expose web services to the Internet, in a single cluster or multi-cluster architecture. You can benefit from many advanced traffic management capabilities offered by the new generation of Google Cloud global external HTTP(S) load balancers natively in GKE by using the Kubernetes Gateway API and specifying a new Gateway class. To see the difference between Gateway classes compatible with our GKE Gateway controller, see here.

November 04, 2022

Change

(2022-R26) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

The following Kubernetes versions are now available for new clusters and for opt-in control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information on versioning and upgrades, see GKE versioning and support and Upgrades.

No channel

  • Version 1.23.12-gke.100 is now the default version.
  • The following control plane and node versions are now available:
  • The following control plane versions are no longer available:
    • 1.22.12-gke.500
    • 1.22.12-gke.1200
    • 1.24.3-gke.2100
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.22.15-gke.100 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.22 to 1.22.15-gke.100 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.24 to 1.24.4-gke.800 with this release.

Stable channel

  • Version 1.22.15-gke.100 is now the default version in the Stable channel.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.22.15-gke.100 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to 1.22.15-gke.100 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to 1.24.5-gke.600 with this release.

Regular channel

  • Version 1.23.12-gke.100 is now the default version in the Regular channel.
  • The following versions are now available in the Regular channel:
  • The following versions are no longer available in the Regular channel:
    • 1.21.14-gke.4300
    • 1.22.12-gke.500
    • 1.23.8-gke.1900
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.20 to 1.21.14-gke.5300 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.21.14-gke.5300 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to 1.23.12-gke.100 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to 1.23.12-gke.100 with this release.

Rapid channel

  • Version 1.24.5-gke.600 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.5300
    • 1.22.13-gke.1000
    • 1.23.11-gke.300
    • 1.24.3-gke.2100
    • 1.25.1-gke.500
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.20 to 1.21.14-gke.7100 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.22.14-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 1.23.12-gke.100 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to 1.24.5-gke.600 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to 1.24.5-gke.600 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to 1.25.2-gke.1700 with this release.

October 28, 2022

Security

A new vulnerability, CVE-2022-20409, has been discovered in the Linux kernel that could allow an unprivileged user to escalate to system execution privilege. For instructions and more details, see the GKE security bulletin.

September 23, 2022

Change

(2022-R23) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

The following Kubernetes versions are now available for new clusters and for opt-in control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information on versioning and upgrades, see GKE versioning and support and Upgrades.

No channel

  • Version 1.22.12-gke.2300 is now the default version.

  • The following control plane and node versions are now available:

  • The following control plane versions are no longer available:

    • 1.21.14-gke.700
    • 1.21.14-gke.2100
    • 1.22.11-gke.400

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.20 to version 1.21.14-gke.2700 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.12-gke.1200 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.22.12-gke.1200 with this release.

Stable channel

  • Version 1.22.12-gke.1200 is now the default version in the Stable channel.

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

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

    • 1.21.14-gke.700
    • 1.22.12-gke.500

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.20 to version 1.21.14-gke.2700 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.12-gke.1200 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.22.12-gke.1200 with this release.

Regular channel

  • Version 1.22.12-gke.2300 is now the default version in the Regular channel.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.12-gke.2300 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.22.12-gke.2300 with this release.

Rapid channel

  • Version 1.24.3-gke.2100 is now the default version in the Rapid channel.

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

  • 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.2300 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.3-gke.2100 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.3-gke.2100 with this release.

September 14, 2022

Change

1.25 is now available in the Rapid channel

Kubernetes 1.25 is now available in the Rapid channel. Before upgrading, read the Kubernetes 1.25 Release Notes, especially the action required and deprecation sections.

September 07, 2022

Fixed

The ip-masq-agent is not able to boot up on Arm nodes in GKE clusters with control planes running the following versions:

  • 2022-R18: 1.23.8-gke.1900, 1.24.2-gke.1900

  • 2022-R19: 1.24.3-gke.200

  • 2022-R20: 1.23.9-gke.900, 1.24.3-gke.900

This regression has been fixed. Please upgrade your control plane to versions included in the 2022-R21 release.

August 04, 2022

Change

(2022-R19) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

The following Kubernetes versions are now available for new clusters and for opt-in control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information on versioning and upgrades, see GKE versioning and support and Upgrades.

No channel

  • The following control plane and node versions are now available:

  • The following control plane versions are no longer available:

    • 1.21.12-gke.1500
    • 1.24.2-gke.300

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.20 to version 1.21.12-gke.2200 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.21.12-gke.2200 with this release.

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

Stable channel

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

  • Version 1.21.12-gke.2200 is now the default version in the Stable channel.

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

    • 1.21.12-gke.1700
    • 1.22.8-gke.201
    • 1.22.8-gke.202

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.20 to version 1.21.12-gke.2200 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.21.12-gke.2200 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.22.10-gke.600 with this release.

Regular channel

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

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

    • 1.20.15-gke.9900
    • 1.21.12-gke.2200
    • 1.22.8-gke.202
    • 1.23.5-gke.1503

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.19 to version 1.20.15-gke.11400 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.20 to version 1.21.13-gke.900 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.21.13-gke.900 with this release.

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.23.7-gke.1400 with this release.

Rapid channel

  • 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.

August 03, 2022

Feature

The maximum number of Pods that can run on each node has increased from 110 to 256 with GKE version 1.23.5-gke.1300 or later. To learn more, see Optimizing IP address allocation.

June 22, 2022

Change

To deliver a better default price-performance for applications, all GKE clusters created with control plane version 1.24 and later have the Balanced Persistent Disk (PD) by default for attached volumes. Additionally, the node boot disk default has also been changed to Balanced Persistent Disk (PD).

The new default for attached volumes is applied to all clusters running control plane version 1.24 and later. The new default node boot disk is applied to all new node pools of any node pool version created in a cluster with control plane version 1.24 and later. Existing preferences will not be changed.

For more information on boot disks, see Configuring a custom boot disk.

For more information on attached volumes see Persistent volumes and dynamic provisioning.

June 10, 2022

Feature

You can now easily identify clusters that use deprecated Kubernetes APIs removed in version 1.22. Kubernetes deprecation insights are now available in Preview.

May 25, 2022

Issue

GKE clusters that run control plane versions 1.21 or later and node versions 1.16 or earlier might experience:

  • Readiness check failures.
  • Network endpoint groups (NEGs) and load balancers (LBs) not created or synced.

This occurs because the Ingress controllers running in GKE cluster control plane versions 1.21 or later are not compatible with node versions 1.16 and earlier. To resolve this issue, upgrade your node pools.

For more information, see Node version not compatible with control plane version.

February 03, 2022

Change

(2022-R02) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

The following Kubernetes versions are now available for new clusters and for opt-in control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information on versioning and upgrades, see GKE versioning and support and Upgrades.

No channel

  • Control plane and node version 1.19.16-gke.6100 is now available.
  • Control plane and node version 1.20.15-gke.300 is now available.
  • Control plane and node version 1.21.9-gke.300 is now available.
  • Control plane and node version 1.22.6-gke.300 is now available.
  • Control plane version 1.21.5-gke.1302 is no longer available.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.18 to 1.19.16-gke.1500 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.19 to 1.19.16-gke.1500 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.21.6-gke.1500 with this release.

Stable channel

  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.18 to 1.19.16-gke.1500 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.19 to 1.19.16-gke.1500 with this release.

Regular channel

  • Version 1.22.3-gke.1500 is now available in the Regular channel.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.19 to 1.20.12-gke.1500 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.20 to 1.21.6-gke.1500 with this release.

Rapid channel

  • Version 1.22.4-gke.1501 is now the default version in the Rapid channel.
  • Version 1.21.9-gke.300 is now available in the Rapid channel.
  • Version 1.22.6-gke.300 is now available in the Rapid channel.
  • Version 1.23.2-gke.300 is now available in the Rapid channel.
  • Version 1.21.5-gke.1802 is no longer available in the Rapid channel.
  • Version 1.23.1-gke.500 is no longer available in the Rapid channel.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.20 to 1.21.6-gke.1500 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.21.6-gke.1500 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to 1.22.4-gke.1501 with this release.
  • Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to 1.23.2-gke.300 with this release.

December 03, 2021

Change

The 2021-R32 release notes from October 29, 2021 were updated on December 03, 2021 with revisions to the upgrade versions for control plane and nodes in Rapid, Regular, Stable, and No Channel.

See the revision note for further details.

December 02, 2021

Fixed

The following GKE versions contain an issue that might affect workloads that use GKE Sandbox:

  • 1.19.14-gke.301, 1.19.14-gke.1900, 1.19.14-gke.2300, 1.19.15-gke.500, 1.19.15-gke.1300, 1.19.15-gke.1801
  • 1.20.10-gke.301, 1.20.10-gke.1600, 1.20.10-gke.2100, 1.20.11-gke.1300, 1.20.11-gke.1801
  • 1.21.4-gke.2300, 1.21.4-gke.2302, 1.21.5-gke.1300, 1.21.5-gke.1302, 1.21.5-gke.1802
  • 1.22.2-gke.1901

What do I need to know?

Applications that use the xmm15 register and receive a signal or hit a page fault while the register is in use might have the register corrupted, leading to unpredictable application behavior. The security of the sandbox is not compromised.

What do I need to do?

Upgrade to one of the following GKE versions that fix the issue:

  • 1.19.16-gke.1500 or later
  • 1.20.12-gke.1500 or later
  • 1.21.6-gke.1500 or later
  • 1.22.3-gke.700 or later

November 04, 2021

Feature

You can now use image streaming in GKE to reduce image pull time and improve overall application startup and autoscaling performance. For more information, see Use image streaming to pull container images.

October 21, 2021

Feature

For GKE Autopilot clusters, Google Groups for RBAC is now generally available.

October 04, 2021

Feature

GKE version 1.20.8-gke.2100 or later offers a Preview of a fully managed metric collection pipeline to scrape Prometheus-style metrics exposed by any GKE workload and send those metrics to Cloud Monitoring for dashboards, alerts, and SLOs. Compared to the Prometheus Stackdriver sidecar, this new pipeline is easy to set up, allows filtering to control cost, supports larger clusters, is fully managed, supports Autopilot and horizontal Pod autoscaling, and offers better pricing. Get started with GKE workload metrics.

October 01, 2021

Change

In Kubernetes 1.21, newly provisioned PersistentVolumes by gce-pd will use the topology.kubernetes.io/zone GA label instead of the failure-domain.beta.kubernetes.io/zone beta label.

September 16, 2021

Change

For Autopilot clusters, starting with GKE version 1.21.3-gke.900:

  • Users can also create mutating webhooks. However, Autopilot modifies the mutating webhooks objects to add a namespace selector which excludes the resources in managed namespaces (currently, kube-system) from being intercepted. Additionally, webhooks which specify one or more of following resources (and any of their sub-resources) in the rules, will be rejected:

    - group: ""
  resource: nodes
- group: ""
  resource: persistentvolumes
- group: certificates.k8s.io
  resource: certificatesigningrequests
- group: authentication.k8s.io
  resource: tokenreviews

  • The SYS_PTRACE capability is allowed in user workloads.

  • Gatekeeper is no longer used in Autopilot policy enforcement, letting users install their own Gatekeeper instances.

When downgrading Autopilot clusters versions 1.21 to the older minor versions, the cluster might intermittently become unavailable. Once the downgrade is complete, the cluster will be available.

September 08, 2021

Deprecated

Several gcloud flags used to configure which logs and metrics are collected are deprecated and replaced with new flags. See Deprecated Configuration Parameters for a list of the deprecated logging and monitoring flags as well as the equivalent values for the new --logging and --monitoring flags.

July 13, 2021

Issue

There is a known issue that prevents the gcloud client from interacting with multi-cluster Ingress that was introduced in gcloud version 346.0.0 and was fixed in version 348.0.0. It is recommended that you do not use gcloud versions 346.0.0 and 347.0.0 when using multi-cluster Ingress.

July 02, 2021

Feature

Config Management is now available on GKE. Config Management provides you with the following benefits:

  • You can now use Policy Controller. Policy Controller enables the enforcement of fully programmable policies for your clusters. To learn more, see Policy Controller overview.
  • You can now install Config Sync using the Cloud Console or the gcloud command line tool. To learn more, see Installing Config Sync.

June 11, 2021

Feature

GKE Multi-cluster Services support for pod-specific addressing is now generally available.

June 10, 2021

Feature

Volume snapshots is now generally available. Starting in GKE version 1.21 and later, you can now use v1 snapshots; v1beta1 snapshots will continue to operate as expected until further notice.

June 09, 2021

Change

Starting in version 1.20, timeouts on exec probes are honored, and default to 1 second if unspecified. If you have Pods using exec probes, ensure that they can easily complete in 1 second or explicitly set an appropriate timeout. For more information, see ConfigureProbes.

May 28, 2021

Feature

GKE clusters running version 1.18 or later now support container native Cloud DNS (available in Preview). Cloud DNS can be used as the in-cluster DNS provider instead of kube-dns.

May 06, 2021

Security

The Envoy and Istio projects recently announced several new security vulnerabilities ( CVE-2021-28683, CVE-2021-28682, and CVE-2021-29258) that could allow an attacker to crash Envoy.

For more information, see the GCP-2021-004 security bulletin.

April 29, 2021

Fixed

Fixes for the following GKE Autopilot clusters issues are rolling out to the Rapid release channel:

  • Pods with a priority lower than -10 would not trigger scale up.
  • Pod anti-affinity might cause overscaling.

April 19, 2021

Issue

Due to GKE Autopilot restrictions on the kubelet API surface, the Datadog Agent is not operating correctly on Autopilot mode clusters.

April 06, 2021

Change

Versions no longer available

The following versions are no longer available for new clusters or upgrades:

  • Versions 1.15 and earlier.

March 23, 2021

Announcement

Starting tomorrow, March 24, 2021, the mechanism we use to create GKE release notes will change. Although this change does not affect the content of the notes, it does affect the presentation and underlying syntax. If you subscribe to the XML feed for this page, entries for March 24 and earlier will be updated as a result of changes to formatting and syntax; the content itself did not change.

The feed URL will also change from https://cloud.google.com/feeds/kubernetes-engine-release-notes.xml to https://cloud.google.com/feeds/gke-main-release-notes.xml. We will automatically redirect from the old URL to the new one.

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+.

February 22, 2021

Issue

Customers using the Config Connector add-on with private clusters might see an issue with all resource requests timing out. Affected customers must manually create a firewall rule that allows your cluster control plane to initiate TCP connections to your nodes on port 9443. For more information, see Adding firewall rules for specific use cases. This issue will be fixed in a future release.

February 02, 2021

Change

(2021-R4) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

The following Kubernetes versions are now available for new clusters and for opt-in control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information on the Kubernetes versioning scheme, see Versioning.

No channel

Stable channel

Regular channel

Rapid channel

  • Version 1.18.12-gke.1206 is now available in the Rapid channel.
  • Version 1.19.7-gke.800 is now available in the Rapid channel.
  • Version 1.19.6-gke.600 is no longer available in the Rapid channel.
  • Auto-upgrading nodes in the Rapid channel automatically upgrade from version 1.19 to version 1.19.6-gke.1700 with this release.

January 19, 2021

Change

(2021-R2) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

The following Kubernetes versions are now available for new clusters and for opt-in control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information on the Kubernetes versioning scheme, see Versioning.

No channel

Stable channel

  • Version 1.17.14-gke.1600 is now available in the Stable channel.
  • Version 1.17.14-gke.1200 is no longer available in the Stable channel.
  • Auto-upgrading nodes in the Stable channel automatically upgrade from version 1.15 to version 1.16.15-gke.6000 with this release.
  • Auto-upgrading nodes in the Stable channel automatically upgrade from version 1.17 to version 1.17.14-gke.1600 with this release.

Regular channel

  • Version 1.17.14-gke.1600 is now available in the Regular channel.
  • Version 1.18.12-gke.1205 is now available in the Regular channel.
  • Version 1.17.14-gke.1200 is no longer available in the Regular channel.
  • Auto-upgrading nodes in the Regular channel automatically upgrade from version 1.18 to version 1.18.12-gke.1205 with this release.

Rapid channel

  • Version 1.18.12-gke.1205 is now available in the Rapid channel. This version is now the default.
  • Version 1.19.6-gke.600 is now available in the Rapid channel. Before upgrading to 1.19.6-gke.600, read the 1.19 available in the Rapid channel section in the release notes.
  • Version 1.18.12-gke.1200 is no longer available in the Rapid channel.
  • Version 1.18.12-gke.1202 is no longer available in the Rapid channel.
  • Auto-upgrading nodes in the Rapid channel automatically upgrade from version 1.18 to version 1.18.12-gke.1205 with this release.
  • Auto-upgrading nodes in the Rapid channel automatically upgrade from version 1.19 to version 1.19.6-gke.600 with this release.
Change

Basic authentication with a password has been removed in Kubernetes 1.19. Clusters upgraded to 1.19 can no longer use basic authentication to authenticate users to the control plane.

November 13, 2020

Feature

You can now specify custom network endpoint group (NEG) names. This feature is in beta.

November 12, 2020

Change

(R37) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

The following Kubernetes versions are now available for new clusters and for opt-in control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information on the Kubernetes versioning scheme, see Versioning.

No channel

Stable channel

  • There are no new releases in the Stable release channel.
  • Auto-upgrading nodes in the Stable channel automatically upgrade from version 1.15 to version 1.16.13-gke.401 with this release.

Regular channel

Rapid channel

  • Version 1.18.10-gke.2101 is now available in the Rapid channel.
  • Auto-upgrading nodes in the Rapid channel automatically upgrade from version 1.18 to version 1.18.10-gke.1500 with this release.
  • Version 1.18.10-gke.1500 is the new default version in the Rapid channel.

September 25, 2020

Change

For clusters not using Legacy Logging and Monitoring, upgrades from 1.14 to 1.15 are now scheduled to start in mid October. This is a change from the details announced in R29.

September 15, 2020

Change

(R30) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

The following Kubernetes versions are now available for new clusters and for opt-in control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information on the Kubernetes versioning scheme, see Versioning.

No channel

  • Version 1.15.12-gke.20 is the new default version for clusters with no channel.

Stable channel

  • Version 1.15.12-gke.20 is the new default version in the Stable channel.
  • Version 1.15.12-gke.2 is no longer available in the Stable channel.

Regular channel

  • Version 1.16.13-gke.401 is the new default version in the Regular channel.
  • Auto-upgrading control planes upgrade from version 1.16 to version 1.16.13-gke.401 during this release.

  • Version 1.17.9-gke.1504 is now available in the Regular channel. This version is not yet the default version or an upgrade target.

    To learn more about the changes contained in 1.17, see the following GKE and Kubernetes release notes:

Rapid channel

  • Version 1.18.6-gke.4801 is now available in the Rapid channel.
  • Version 1.18.6-gke.3504 is the new default version in the Rapid channel.
  • Version 1.17.9-gke.1503 is no longer available in the Rapid channel.
  • Version 1.18.6-gke.3503 is no longer available in the Rapid channel.
  • Auto-upgrading nodes and control planes upgrade from version 1.17 to version 1.17.9-gke.1504 during this release.

September 08, 2020

Feature

TaintBasedEvictions are generally available in GKE in 1.18 clusters.

August 21, 2020

Feature

Dataplane V2 is now available in beta in newly created clusters using GKE versions 1.17.9-gke.600 and later or 1.18 and later. See New GKE Dataplane V2 increases security and visibility for containers on the Google Cloud Blog for more details.

July 02, 2020

Feature

NodeLocal DNSCache is now generally available.

June 29, 2020

Change

Node image changes

GKE 1.14

The COS image for GKE 1.14.10-gke.45 clusters is cos-73-11647-534-0.

GKE 1.15

The COS image for GKE 1.15.12-gke.6 clusters is cos-77-12371-251-0.

June 02, 2020

Change

March 16, 2020

Change

Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New default version

The default version for new clusters is now 1.14.10-gke.24

Scheduled automatic upgrades

Masters and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded:

Current version Upgrade version
1.13.12 or lower 1.14.10-gke.17

Rollouts are phased across multiple weeks, to ensure cluster and fleet stability.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

The following Kubernetes versions are now available for new clusters and for opt-in control plane upgrades and node upgrades for existing clusters. For more information on the Kubernetes versioning scheme, see Versioning.

No channel

Stable channel

Regular channel

Rapid channel

Versions no longer available

The following version is no longer available to create a new cluster:

  • 1.13.12-gke.30

March 06, 2020

Change

Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

Scheduled automatic upgrades

Masters and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded:

Current version Upgrade version
1.13.12-gke.25 1.14.10-gke.17
1.14.8, 1.14.9 1.14.10-gke.17
1.15.7, 1.15.8-gke.2 1.15.8-gke.3

Rollouts are phased across multiple weeks, to ensure cluster and fleet stability.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

v.1.13.x
  • There are no new 1.13 versions this week.
v.1.14.x
v.1.15.x

Stable channel

  • There are no new versions in the Stable channel this week.

Regular channel

Rapid channel

February 25, 2020

Change

Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

Scheduled automatic upgrades

Masters and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded:

Current version Upgrade version
1.13.12-gke.25 1.14.10-gke.17
1.14.8 1.14.10-gke.17

Rollouts are phased across multiple weeks, to ensure cluster and fleet stability.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

v.1.13.x
  • There are no new 1.13 versions this week.
v.1.14.x
  • 1.14.10-gke.17
v.1.15.x
  • 1.15.9-gke.12

Stable channel

  • There are no new versions in the Stable channel this week.

Regular channel

  • 1.15.8-gke.3

Rapid channel

  • 1.16.6-gke.4
Versions no longer available

The following versions are no longer available for new clusters or upgrades.

  • 1.13.12-gke.25
  • 1.14.8-gke.33

February 11, 2020

Change

Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New default version

The default version for new clusters is now 1.14.10-gke.17.

Scheduled automatic upgrades

Masters and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded:

Current version Upgrade version
1.13.x 1.13.12-gke.25

Rollouts are phased across multiple weeks, to ensure cluster and fleet stability.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

v.1.13.x
  • 1.13.12-gke.25
v.1.14.x
  • 1.14.10-gke.17
v.1.15.x
  • 1.15.9-gke.8

Stable channel

  • 1.14.10-gke.17

Regular channel

  • 1.15.7-gke.23

Rapid channel

  • 1.16.4-gke.30
Versions no longer available

The following versions are no longer available for new clusters or upgrades.

  • 1.13.11-gke.14
  • 1.13.11-gke.15
  • 1.13.11-gke.23 (moved to LEGACY version)
  • 1.13.12-gke.8
  • 1.13.12-gke.13
  • 1.13.12-gke.14
  • 1.13.12-gke.16
  • 1.13.12-gke.17

January 22, 2020

Feature

NodeLocal DNSCache is now in Beta for GKE clusters 1.15 and above. NodeLocal DNS is an optional feature for local DNS resolution to every GKE node for enhanced DNS scale and capacity.

January 07, 2020

Feature

You can now use Customer-managed encryption keys (beta) to control the encryption used for node boot disks as well as attached persistent disks in your clusters.