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 latest minor versions available as defaults in GKE for the specified release channels. This table includes the latest default GKE patch version and the Container-Optimized OS version for each supported minor version.

Kubernetes minor versions	1.27	1.27	1.27	1.27
GKE release channel	Static¹ (no channel)	Stable	Regular	Rapid
Default patch version	1.27.3-gke.100	1.27.3-gke.100	1.27.3-gke.100	1.27.4-gke.900
COS version available	cos-105-17412-101-24	cos-105-17412-101-24	cos-105-17412-101-24	cos-105-17412-156-4

For information on the current versions rollout and support schedule, see the GKE release schedule. For information on versioning and upgrades, see GKE versioning and support and Upgrades.

Other versions may be available for static version clusters. ↩

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.

To get the latest product updates delivered to you, add the URL of this page to your feed reader, or add the feed URL directly: https://cloud.google.com/feeds/gke-main-release-notes.xml

September 21, 2023

When you create a LoadBalancer service in GKE, the Google Cloud controllers automatically create the following firewall rules and apply them to the GKE nodes to allow inbound connections on the Service port:

Internal load balancer with GKE subsetting or external load balancer with regional backend services (RBS): k8s2-[cluster-id]-[namespace]-[service-name]-[suffixhash]
Internal load balancer without GKE subsetting or external load balancer with target pool: k8s-fw-[loadbalancer-hash]

For clusters running version 1.25 or later, these rules now include the load balancer IP address in the destination ranges field to further control the inbound connections to the nodes. You can use the gcloud compute firewall-rules describe command to check a relevant firewall. The new field in the output is similar to the following:

destinationRanges:
- [LOADBALANCER_VIRTUAL_IP_ADDRESS]

For services that use externalIP, ensure you have firewall rules that allow traffic to the specified IP addresses.

The Observability dashboards on the GKE Clusters List, Cluster Details, and Workload List pages are now customizable. Additionally, the Cluster Details dashboards can be customized across the entire project, or per-cluster for specific use cases.

September 19, 2023

The me-central2 region in Dammam, Saudi Arabia is now available.

September 18, 2023

GKE clusters running version 1.28 or later block new bindings of ClusterRole cluster-admin to User system:anonymous, Group system:authenticated, or Group system:unauthenticated due to the security risks of these bindings. GKE does not block existing bindings.

GKE has temporarily paused all automatic node upgrades due to an issue with blue-green upgrades rollback functionality. You can still manually upgrade node pools with the surge upgrade strategy. Do not manually upgrade node pools with blue-green upgrades. GKE is working on a fix for this issue and will post a follow-up note here when the issue is fixed and automatic upgrades resume.

September 12, 2023

You can now use node auto-provisioning for TPU slices. With this feature, Standard clusters with GKE version 1.28 and later provision TPU node pools and multi-host TPU accelerators automatically to ensure the capacity required to schedule AI/ML workloads. To learn more, see Configuring TPU node auto-provisioning.

September 11, 2023

Compute Engine persistent disk CSI Drivers deployed on clusters running version 1.26 and later now support filesystem size expansion during restoration from a snapshot or a clone when the PVC data source is larger than the original volume. For more information, see the GitHub pull request.

September 07, 2023

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.

With the recently released version of GKE, version 1.28, you cannot yet use the SidecarContainer feature with alpha clusters. Pods defining restartable Init containers will not start. This is a known issue that will be resolved in a future release.

For GKE clusters using Dataplane V2, upgrades to GKE version 1.26 might cause GKE to temporarily be unable to configure workloads. In some cases, this might cause existing workloads to temporarily lose networking access. This issue does not impact new clusters and GKE clusters not using Dataplane V2. For clusters running version 1.25 with Dataplane V2 enabled, GKE has temporarily disabled auto-upgrades to version 1.26. We recommend that customers not manually upgrade their Dataplane V2-enabled cluster to GKE version 1.26. This is a known issue for GKE version 1.26 and will be fixed in a future patch version of 1.26.

September 05, 2023

(2023-R18) 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: 1.23.17-gke.8400, 1.23.17-gke.10000, 1.23.17-gke.10700, 1.24.14-gke.1400, 1.24.14-gke.2100, 1.25.10-gke.2100, 1.26.5-gke.1400
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled 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 will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.10-gke.2700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.10-gke.2700 with this release.

Stable channel

The following versions are now available in the Stable channel:
The following versions are no longer available in the Stable channel: 1.23.17-gke.8400, 1.24.14-gke.1400, 1.25.10-gke.2100, 1.27.3-gke.1700
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable 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 Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.10-gke.2700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.10-gke.2700 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: 1.23.17-gke.10000, 1.24.14-gke.2700, 1.25.10-gke.2700, 1.26.5-gke.2700
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.15-gke.1700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.11-gke.1700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.26.6-gke.1700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.6-gke.1700 with this release.

Rapid channel

Version 1.27.4-gke.900 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: 1.23.17-gke.10000, 1.23.17-gke.10700, 1.24.16-gke.500, 1.25.11-gke.1700, 1.26.6-gke.1700, 1.27.3-gke.1700
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.200 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.12-gke.500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.26.7-gke.500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.27.4-gke.900 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.4-gke.900 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.28 to version 1.28.1-gke.200 with this release.

1.28 is now available in the Rapid channel

Kubernetes 1.28 is now available in the Rapid channel. For more information about the content of Kubernetes 1.28, read the Kubernetes 1.28 Release Notes.

New APIs

The kubectl auth whoami command and the authentication.k8s.io/v1 SelfSubjectReview API enables checking the authenticated user information as seen by the server.

Deprecated API versions

These APIs are still served in version 1.28 but are in a deprecation period:

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.

Deprecated in-tree volume support

The Ceph CephFS (kubernetes.io/cephfs) and RBD (kubernetes.io/rbd) volume plugins are deprecated in 1.28 and will be removed in a future release.
To determine if you have volumes or Pods using RBD or Ceph volumes, run the following commands. If either of them print output, then you are using a deprecated volume type.
- kubectl describe pv | egrep -i 'Type: *(RBD|CephFS)'
- kubectl describe pod -A | egrep -i 'Type: *(RBD|CephFS)'
Switch to use an RBD or CephFS CSI driver, such as the drivers provided in the Ceph CSI GitHub repo, or use a Google-managed solution such as Filestore. For more information, refer to the OSS Kubernetes announcement and the Ceph CSI GitHub repo.

The recently released version of GKE, version 1.28, has a known regression in behavior. After node restart, Pods that have started initialization before the restart will run Init containers in-parallel with regular containers instead of waiting for Init containers to complete.

To deliver a better default price-performance for applications, all GKE Autopilot clusters with control plane version 1.27.5 and later will use an SSD-based persistent disk for ephemeral storage. This change will only affect newly created clusters and new node pools created in clusters upgraded to version 1.27.5 and later.

It is not yet possible to enable Gateway API support in GKE 1.28 (Standard or Autopilot), this will be fixed in an upcoming patch release to GKE 1.28. Clusters that already have Gateway API enabled before upgrading to GKE 1.28 will continue to be supported. This will not affect existing Gateways.

September 01, 2023

Starting on September 1, 2023, a new automation policy is in effect where GKE automatically starts a credential rotation within 30 days of your cluster's certificate authority expiry date to ensure that your cluster doesn't have a complete outage. For example, if your cluster's CA expires on 2024-01-05, an automatic rotation starts on or after 2023-12-06. Automatic credential rotation is a critical update that ignores any configured maintenance windows.

This automatic rotation might cause API clients outside the cluster, such as kubectl in a local environment, to stop working unless you update those clients to use the new credentials.

You should plan for and perform credential rotations well in advance of your cluster CA expiring to ensure a smooth transition to new credentials and minimal workload disruptions. Don't rely on automatic rotation; it is intended to be a last resort to prevent complete outages. To learn more about the stages of credential rotation, see Rotate your cluster's credentials.

August 31, 2023

For GKE nodes running version 1.25 and later, when Image streaming is enabled, the mv command and renameat2 system call might fail on symlink files in container images with the error message "No such device or address". The issue is caused by a regression on recent Linux kernels. GKE does not currently have a fix for the issue. To learn more, see the troubleshooting section for this issue.

August 30, 2023

GKE now supports the ability to create nodes and workloads with multiple network interfaces. You can create new clusters with version 1.27 and later with multi networking enabled. The additional network interfaces on the Pods can be regular interfaces or high performance interfaces where the network interface is directly attached to the Pod. For more information, see Setup multi-network support for Pods.

Your clusters can now perform operations, such as node auto-provisioning or version upgrades, on multiple node pools in parallel. You no longer have to wait for an operation to complete before you initiate another operation. This feature is enabled for all GKE versions. This change provides you with benefits like the following:

More efficient scaling, which results in improved savings and faster workload deployment
Faster, less disruptive node pool upgrades
Fewer "operation already in progress" messages that could delay subsequent planned operations
More reliable rollback behavior to fix upgrade-related disruptions in production
Automatic control plane resize operations won't block other operations on the cluster

The Google Cloud Platform Terraform provider has also been updated to take advantage of this change.

August 29, 2023

You can now create Cloud Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) nodes in GKE to run AI workloads, from training to inference models. GKE manages your cluster by automating TPU resource provisioning, scaling, scheduling, repairing, and upgrading. GKE provides TPU infrastructure metrics in Cloud Monitoring, TPU logs, and error reports for better visibility and monitoring of TPU node pools in GKE clusters. TPUs are available with GKE Standard clusters. GKE supports TPU v4 in version 1.26.1.gke-1500 and later, and supports TPU v5e in version 1.27.2-gke.1500 and later. To learn more, see About TPUs in GKE.

You can now sequence the rollout of cluster upgrades across fleets or across scopes. To learn more, see About cluster upgrades with rollout sequencing.

August 28, 2023

Version 4.80.0 of the Terraform provider for Google Cloud fixes an issue observed when deploying new GKE Autopilot clusters that would destroy and re-create the cluster due to a change in the dns_config state. This version of the provider ensures that customers can deploy GKE Autopilot clusters using Cloud DNS as the default in-cluster DNS provider. For more information, see Terraform plans to re-create Autopilot cluster due to dns_config change.

August 25, 2023

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.

August 22, 2023

The europe-west10 region in Berlin, Germany is now available.

August 17, 2023

You can now easily identify clusters that use deprecated Kubernetes APIs removed in versions 1.25, 1.26, and 1.27. Kubernetes deprecation insights are now available for these versions.

August 16, 2023

GKE Infrastructure Dashboards and Metrics Packages are now available for both GKE Autopilot and Standard clusters with control plane version 1.27.2-gke.1200 and later. You can now configure Autopilot or Standard clusters to export a predefined list of metrics emitted by GKE managed KSM (kube-state-metrics) for workloads state and Persistent Storage. These metrics are collected by Google Cloud Managed Service for Prometheus and are sent to Cloud Monitoring. You can also view new dashboards (Persistent and Workloads state) rendering those metrics in the Observability tab. For more information, see View observability metrics.

You can now troubleshoot issues with CPU limit utilization and Memory limit utilization of containers running in GKE by using the new "interactive playbook" dashboards in Cloud Monitoring.

August 10, 2023

Public clusters upgraded to GKE versions 1.24 and later will eventually be migrated to use Private Service Connect (PSC) for private control plane communication. After the control plane has been reconfigured, GKE schedules an update for your cluster's nodes to use the new private IP address to communicate with control plane. Each node pool is marked for recreation. You can use maintenance windows to control when your nodes are recreated. There is no price increase for using GKE public clusters running on PSC. For more information, see Public clusters with Private Service Connect.

August 09, 2023

The Filestore CSI driver now supports smaller share sizes (10Gi) for Filestore multishares for GKE for enterprise instances starting in version 1.27.

CVE-2023-0464, CVE-2023-0465, CVE-2023-0466, and CVE-2023-2650 have been patched in Filestore CSI driver in GKE versions 1.23 and 1.24, for newly created clusters.

August 08, 2023

(2023-R17) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

Version 1.27.3-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:
- 1.22.17-gke.12700
- 1.22.17-gke.14100
- 1.23.17-gke.7700
- 1.24.14-gke.1200
- 1.25.10-gke.1200
- 1.25.10-gke.1400
- 1.26.5-gke.1200
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.8400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.14-gke.1400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled 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 will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.10-gke.2100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled 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 will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.3-gke.100 with this release.

Stable channel

Version 1.27.3-gke.100 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:
- 1.22.17-gke.12700
- 1.23.17-gke.7700
- 1.24.14-gke.1200
- 1.25.10-gke.1200
- 1.26.5-gke.1400
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.8400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.14-gke.1400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable 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 Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.10-gke.2100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.5-gke.2100 with this release.

Regular channel

Version 1.27.3-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:
- 1.22.17-gke.14100
- 1.23.17-gke.8400
- 1.24.14-gke.1400
- 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 Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.10000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.14-gke.2700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.10-gke.2700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.26.5-gke.2700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.5-gke.2700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.3-gke.100 with this release.

Rapid channel

Version 1.27.3-gke.1700 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.14100
- 1.23.17-gke.8400
- 1.24.15-gke.1700
- 1.25.10-gke.2700
- 1.26.5-gke.2700
- 1.27.3-gke.100
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.10000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.16-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 1.25.11-gke.1700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.26.6-gke.1700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.27.3-gke.1700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.3-gke.1700 with this release.

August 04, 2023

GKE Autopilot supports the creation of certificate signing request (CSR) objects on new clusters with version 1.27 or later, as long as those CSRs do not conflict with system components identities, and Google-managed IAM service accounts. This feature will be enabled for existing 1.27 clusters within the next few weeks.

August 02, 2023

You can now run workloads on A100 80GB GPUs in Autopilot clusters that use GKE version 1.27 and later.

July 26, 2023

(2023-R16) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

Version 1.27.2-gke.1200 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.18800
- 1.23.17-gke.6800
- 1.23.17-gke.7000
- 1.24.13-gke.2500
- 1.25.8-gke.1000
- 1.25.9-gke.2300
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled 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 will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.14-gke.1200 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.10-gke.1200 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.10-gke.1200 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.5-gke.1400 with this release.

Stable channel

Version 1.26.5-gke.1400 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.18800
- 1.23.17-gke.6800
- 1.24.13-gke.2500
- 1.25.9-gke.2300
- 1.26.5-gke.1200
- 1.27.2-gke.1200
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable 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 Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.14-gke.1200 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.10-gke.1200 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.10-gke.1200 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.5-gke.1400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.3-gke.100 with this release.

Regular channel

Version 1.27.2-gke.1200 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.18800
- 1.22.17-gke.12700
- 1.23.17-gke.7000
- 1.24.14-gke.1200
- 1.25.10-gke.1200
- 1.26.5-gke.1200
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular 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 Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.8400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.14-gke.1400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.10-gke.1400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.26.5-gke.1400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.5-gke.1400 with this release.

Rapid channel

Version 1.27.3-gke.100 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.18800
- 1.23.17-gke.7700
- 1.24.14-gke.2700
- 1.25.10-gke.2100
- 1.26.5-gke.2100
- 1.27.2-gke.2100
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.8400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.15-gke.1700 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.2700 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.2700 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.2700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.3-gke.100 with this release.

July 25, 2023

Kubernetes control plane logs and Kubernetes control plane metrics are now available for GKE Autopilot clusters with control plane version 1.22.0 and later and 1.22.13 and later, respectively. You can now configure Autopilot cluster to export logs and certain metrics emitted by the Kubernetes API server, scheduler, and controller manager to Cloud Logging and Cloud Monitoring.

July 24, 2023

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.

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 21, 2023

Update to the Issue release note published on July 19, 2023

We investigated this issue and are rolling back the --no-enable-insecure-kubelet-readonly-port flag in the gcloud CLI. New or existing clusters where the port is still enabled aren't affected. If you already disabled the port, your cluster will continue to work, but you may notice inconsistency in whether the port is fully disabled on every node of the cluster. We'll publish a release note if we have new updates related to the kubelet read-only port.

July 20, 2023

In GKE version 1.25 and later, there is a bug fix in the Ingress Controller to unset the Cloud Armor Ingress Security Policy when removed from the BackendConfig.

Users who have manually attached the Security Policy to a backend service should no longer use this method and should use the BackendConfig to continue using Cloud Armor Security Policies prior to cluster upgrades to GKE version 1.25 and later.

With this fix, the Ingress Controller will reconcile using the configuration in the BackendConfig, thus unsetting any Security Policies added manually to a backend service.

July 19, 2023

There's a known issue causing the gcloud CLI to crash when you run the command to disable the insecure kubelet read-only port, as described in Stop using the insecure kubelet read-only port in GKE clusters. We're investigating this issue and will publish an update when it's fixed.

Starting in GKE version 1.27 and gke-metrics-agent version 2.0.0, the memory request and limit of gke-metrics-agent will increase by an extra 60MiB. This change makes the system metrics collection more stable and reliable.

July 14, 2023

New Autopilot clusters created with version 1.27.3-gke.100 or later are now provisioned with e2-small default nodes, which are removed immediately after cluster creation. With this change, DaemonSets are guaranteed to schedule on all candidate nodes, as long as you follow best practices for DaemonSets on Autopilot.

July 13, 2023

The managed Cloud Storage FUSE CSI driver for GKE is now GA in versions 1.26.5 and later. You can use this driver to consume Cloud Storage buckets for GKE workloads.

July 12, 2023

GKE Dataplane V2 observability is now available in Public Preview starting in GKE versions 1.26.4-gke.500 or later, or 1.27.1-gke.400 or later. You can now enable Dataplane V2 metrics and observability tools on your cluster. Dataplane V2 metrics are included in new Autopilot clusters and opt-in for new Standard clusters. You can opt-in to enable Dataplane V2 observability tools for Autopilot and Standard clusters. Existing clusters can also be updated to enable metrics and observability tooling.

For more information, check out GKE Dataplane V2 observability.

Revision for the release note announced on June 26, 2023

Starting August 2023, Cloud DNS will become the default DNS provider for new GKE Autopilot clusters created with version 1.25.9-gke.400 or later, or version 1.26.4-gke.500 or later (effectively replacing kube-dns). The rollout will be gradual and expected to be completed by August 11, 2023. To learn more, see Cloud DNS for GKE.

In GKE version 1.24 and later, new beta APIs are, by default, disabled in new clusters. Starting in version 1.27, which is the first new minor version since 1.24 where new beta APIs are introduced, you can enable new APIs on cluster creation or for an existing cluster.

For more information, see how to Use Kubernetes beta APIs with GKE clusters.

July 11, 2023

You can now troubleshoot common GKE issues by using the new "interactive playbook" dashboards in Cloud Monitoring: unschedulable pods and crashlooping containers. You can also access the interactive playbooks from GKE UI insights and set alerts that will allow you to know once those issues occurs.

For information about using these dashboards, see the GKE troubleshooting documentation for unschedulable pods and crashlooping.

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.

July 10, 2023

The new release of the GKE Gateway controller (2023-R2) is now generally available. With this release, the GKE Gateway controller will provide the following new capabilities:

New GatewayClasses supporting the regional external Application Load Balancer
Identity-aware Proxy (IAP) Integration
Custom request and response headers
URL Rewrites and Path Redirects

To learn more, see the supported capabilities per GatewayClass.

July 07, 2023

(2023-R15) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

The following control plane and node versions are now available:
The following control plane versions are no longer available:
- 1.22.17-gke.8000
- 1.22.17-gke.11400
- 1.23.17-gke.5600
- 1.24.12-gke.500
- 1.24.12-gke.1000
- 1.24.13-gke.500
- 1.26.3-gke.1000
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.6800 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.13-gke.2500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.13-gke.2500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.5-gke.1200 with this release.

Stable channel

Version 1.26.5-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:
- 1.23.17-gke.5600
- 1.24.12-gke.1000
- 1.25.8-gke.1000
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.6800 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.13-gke.2500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.9-gke.2300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.9-gke.2300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.2-gke.1200 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:
- 1.23.17-gke.6800
- 1.24.13-gke.2500
- 1.25.9-gke.2300
- 1.26.3-gke.1000
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.7000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.14-gke.1200 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.10-gke.1200 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.10-gke.1200 with this release.

Rapid channel

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.

June 28, 2023

FQDN Network Policy, currently in Public Preview, can now be enabled on GKE Autopilot clusters, by updating your clusters. To lean more, see Control Pod egress traffic using FQDN network policies.

June 27, 2023

With CVE-2023-31436, an out-of-bounds memory access flaw was found in the Linux kernel's traffic control (QoS) subsystem in how a user triggers the qfq_change_class function with an incorrect MTU value of the network device used as lmax. This flaw allows a local user to crash or potentially escalate their privileges on the system.

For more information, see the GCP-2023-017 security bulletin.

A new vulnerability (CVE-2023-2235) has been discovered in the Linux kernel that can lead to a privilege escalation on the node. For more information, see the GCP-2023-018 security bulletin.

(2023-R14) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

Version 1.26.5-gke.1200 is now the default version.
The following control plane and node versions are now available:
The following node versions are now available:
- 1.22.17-gke.13400
The following control plane versions are no longer available:
- 1.23.17-gke.2000
- 1.23.17-gke.3600
- 1.25.8-gke.500
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.17-gke.12700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.5600 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.23.17-gke.5600 with this release.

Stable channel

The following versions are now available in the Stable channel:
The following versions are no longer available in the Stable channel:
- 1.22.17-gke.8000
- 1.23.17-gke.2000
- 1.24.12-gke.500
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.17-gke.12700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.5600 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.12-gke.1000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.12-gke.1000 with this release.

Regular channel

Version 1.26.5-gke.1200 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:
- 1.22.17-gke.11400
- 1.23.17-gke.5600
- 1.24.12-gke.1000
- 1.25.8-gke.1000
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.17-gke.12700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.6800 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.13-gke.2500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.9-gke.2300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.26.5-gke.1200 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.5-gke.1200 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:
- 1.23.17-gke.6800
- 1.24.14-gke.1400
- 1.25.10-gke.1200
- 1.26.5-gke.1200
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.7000 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.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 1.25.10-gke.1400 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.1400 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.1400 with this release.

June 26, 2023

Managed Service for Prometheus is enabled by default in new GKE Standard clusters running version 1.27 and later. Existing clusters that upgrade to 1.27 will not automatically enable this feature. For more information, see Enable managed collection: GKE.

Starting June 26, 2023, Cloud DNS becomes the default DNS provider for new GKE Autopilot clusters created with version 1.25.9-gke.400 or later or version 1.26.4-gke.500 or later, effectively replacing kube-dns. To learn more, see Cloud DNS for GKE.

June 23, 2023

Automatic GPU driver installation is available in version 1.27.2-gke.1200 and later, which enables you to install NVIDIA GPU drivers on nodes without manually applying a DaemonSet.

For instructions, see Running GPUs.

June 22, 2023

GKE Autopilot now supports the ability to deploy your own service mesh. Many service meshes, such as Istio or LinkerD, require CAP_NET_ADMIN Linux capability to function, which is disabled on Autopilot clusters by default to reduce the size of the security attack surface. You can now optionally enable NET_ADMIN on your Autopilot clusters if you need this capability for your service meshes or other opt-in use cases. See Autopilot Security for more information for how to enable NET_ADMIN.

June 21, 2023

A new vulnerability, CVE-2023-0468, has been discovered in the Linux kernel that could allow an unprivileged user to escalate privileges to root when io_poll_get_ownership will keep increasing req->poll_refs on every io_poll_wake then overflow to 0 which will fput req->file twice and cause a struct file refcount issue. GKE clusters, including Autopilot clusters, with Container-Optimized OS using Linux Kernel version 5.15 are affected. GKE clusters using Ubuntu images or using GKE Sandbox are unaffected.

For instructions and more details, see the GKE security bulletin.

GKE support for Hyperdisk Throughput and Hyperdisk Extreme as an attached persistent disk option is now generally available. Support is available for both Autopilot and Standard clusters running GKE versions 1.26 and later.

June 16, 2023

Two new security issues were discovered in Kubernetes where users may be able to launch containers that bypass policy restrictions when using ephemeral containers and either ImagePolicyWebhook (CVE-2023-2727) or the ServiceAccount admission plugin (CVE-2023-2728).

For more information, see the GCP-2023-014 security bulletin.

June 15, 2023

(2023-R13) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

Version 1.25.8-gke.1000 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.18100
- 1.24.11-gke.1000
- 1.26.4-gke.500
- 1.26.4-gke.1400
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.20 to version 1.21.14-gke.18800 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.21.14-gke.18800 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled 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 will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.2-gke.1200 with this release.

Stable channel

The following versions are now available in the Stable channel:
- 1.24.13-gke.2500
- 1.26.5-gke.1200
Version 1.24.11-gke.1000 is no longer available in the Stable channel.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable 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 Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.5-gke.1200 with this release.

Regular channel

Version 1.25.8-gke.1000 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:
- 1.22.17-gke.8000
- 1.23.17-gke.2000
- 1.25.8-gke.500
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.17-gke.11400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.5600 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.23.17-gke.5600 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.8-gke.1000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.8-gke.1000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.27 to version 1.27.2-gke.1200 with this release.

Rapid channel

Version 1.27.2-gke.1200 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.11400
- 1.23.17-gke.5600
- 1.24.14-gke.1200
- 1.25.9-gke.2300
- 1.26.3-gke.1000
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.12700 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.6800 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.1400 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.1200 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.1200 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.1200 with this release.

June 14, 2023

Clusters with low or no utilization can be identified by Idle Cluster insights.

June 12, 2023

Dual-stack LoadBalancer Services are now available in Preview. Dual-stack LoadBalancer Services are supported on both GKE Standard and Autopilot dual-stack clusters. To learn more, see Single-stack and dual-stack Services.

You can now use deprecation insights to identify clusters on versions 1.21 to 1.24 that use Pod Security Policy, which is unsupported on GKE version 1.25 and later.

June 09, 2023

New Autopilot clusters that run GKE version 1.25.5-gke.1000 and later automatically use Image streaming to pull eligible images.

In addition to the existing egress network policy GKE already supports, you can now control the egress traffic of your Pods by using a network policy that matches a fully-qualified domain name or a regular expression. FQDN Network Policy is now available in Preview for clusters in version 1.26.4-gke.500 and later, and 1.27.1-gke.400 and later. For more information, see Control Pod egress traffic using FQDN network policies.

June 08, 2023

The PD CSI Driver will be automatically enabled on upgrades to 1.25, for clusters with the add-on disabled. There are no cost implications for enabling the driver, and it requests only a small amount of node resources. This upgrade enables gce-pd volumes to continue working on Kubernetes clusters version 1.25 and later. You can still disable the driver manually after upgrade. For more details, see Configuring add-ons.

June 07, 2023

(2023-R12) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

The following control plane versions are now available:
The following node versions are now available:
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.8-gke.1000 with this release.

Stable channel

Version 1.25.8-gke.1000 is now the default version in the Stable channel.
Version 1.21.14-gke.18100 is no longer available in the Stable channel.
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.18800 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.21.14-gke.18800 with this release.

Regular channel

Version 1.24.13-gke.2500 is now available in the Regular channel.
Version 1.24.12-gke.500 is no longer available in the Regular channel.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.12-gke.1000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.12-gke.1000 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:
- 1.22.17-gke.8000
- 1.23.17-gke.2000
- 1.23.17-gke.3600
- 1.24.13-gke.2500
- 1.25.8-gke.1000
- 1.26.4-gke.500
- 1.26.4-gke.1400
- 1.27.1-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.11400 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.5600 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.1200 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.9-gke.2300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.9-gke.2300 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.1200 with this release.

June 06, 2023

A new vulnerability (CVE-2023-1872) has been discovered in the Linux kernel that can lead to a privilege escalation to root on the node. For more information, see the GCP-2023-008.

A new vulnerability (CVE-2023-2878) has been discovered in the secrets-store-csi-driver where an actor with access to the driver logs could observe service account tokens. These tokens could then potentially be exchanged with external cloud providers to access secrets stored in cloud vault solutions. On GKE, the severity is None. For more information, see the GCP-2023-009 security bulletin.

June 05, 2023

(2023-R11) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

The following control plane and node versions are now available:
The following control plane versions are no longer available:
- 1.22.17-gke.7500
- 1.22.17-gke.9400
- 1.23.17-gke.1700
- 1.24.10-gke.2300
- 1.25.7-gke.1000
- 1.25.9-gke.400
- 1.26.2-gke.1000
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled 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 will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.2000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.12-gke.500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.12-gke.500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.8-gke.500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.3-gke.1000 with this release.

Stable channel

Version 1.24.12-gke.500 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:
- 1.22.17-gke.7500
- 1.23.17-gke.1700
- 1.24.10-gke.2300
- 1.25.8-gke.500
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable 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 Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.2000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.12-gke.500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.12-gke.500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.8-gke.1000 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:
- 1.22.17-gke.7500
- 1.23.17-gke.1700
- 1.24.11-gke.1000
- 1.26.2-gke.1000
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular 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 Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.2000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.12-gke.500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.12-gke.500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.3-gke.1000 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:
- 1.22.17-gke.9400
- 1.23.17-gke.1700
- 1.24.13-gke.500
- 1.25.9-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.2000 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.2500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.13-gke.2500 with this release.

June 01, 2023

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

May 26, 2023

The Observability tab for each of your GKE clusters now includes metrics for ephemeral storage. For more information, see View observability metrics.

May 25, 2023

CVE-2022-4450, CVE-2022-2097, CVE-2023-0286, CVE-2023-0215, and CVE-2022-4304 have been patched in all minor versions for all existing and new clusters using the Compute Engine persistent disk CSI driver.

For VPC peering-based private clusters running version 1.27 or later, traffic from kube-apiserver to nodes routes through the Konnectivity service. If your cluster was created before 2020-09-17, this traffic from does not route through Konnectivity unless you have rotated the control plane IP address after 2020-09-17.

May 23, 2023

CVE-2023-26604 has been fixed in clusters running version 1.25 using the Filestore CSI driver. The fix is transparent, but to mitigate instability, it is available by manually upgrading the cluster to the newest 1.25 patch version. The CVE is not present in clusters running version 1.26 or later.

May 22, 2023

The C3 machine family is generally available for GKE Standard clusters running on version 1.22 and later. You can select this family by using the --machine-type flag when creating a cluster or node pool.

The following features are not supported for this machine family:

Node auto-provisioning.
Confidential GKE nodes.
Local SSD.
Standard persistent disks (pd-standard).

For more information, refer to the C3 machine series documentation.

May 18, 2023

Two new vulnerabilities (CVE-2023-1281, CVE-2023-1829) have been discovered in the Linux kernel that can lead to a privilege escalation to root on the node. GKE Standard clusters are affected. For more information, see the GCP-2023-005 security bulletin.

May 12, 2023

The g2-standard machine family with NVIDIA L4 is generally available for node pools in clusters running GKE version 1.22 and later. To select the machine family, use the --machine-type flag in your create command.

May 09, 2023

(2023-R10) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

Version 1.25.8-gke.500 is now the default version.
The following control plane versions are now available:
The following versions are no longer available:
- 1.21.14-gke.8500
- 1.21.14-gke.15800
- 1.22.17-gke.5400
- 1.22.17-gke.6100
- 1.23.16-gke.1400
- 1.23.16-gke.2500
- 1.23.17-gke.300
- 1.24.9-gke.3200
- 1.24.10-gke.1200
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.20 to version 1.21.14-gke.18100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.17-gke.7500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled 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 will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.11-gke.1000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.11-gke.1000 with this release.

Stable channel

Version 1.24.11-gke.1000 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.15800
- 1.22.17-gke.5400
- 1.23.16-gke.1400
- 1.24.9-gke.3200
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.18100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.17-gke.7500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.1700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.11-gke.1000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.11-gke.1000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.8-gke.500 with this release.

Regular channel

Version 1.25.8-gke.500 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:
- 1.22.17-gke.6100
- 1.23.17-gke.300
- 1.24.10-gke.2300
- 1.25.7-gke.1000
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.17-gke.7500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.1700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.11-gke.1000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.8-gke.500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.8-gke.500 with this release.

Rapid channel

Version 1.26.3-gke.1000 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.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.

Now in GA for both GKE Standard and Autopilot clusters with GKE version 1.26 and later, you can add more IPv4 secondary Pod ranges to a new or existing cluster with the --additional-pod-ipv4-ranges flag. To learn more, see Adding Pod IP addresses.

May 03, 2023

In GKE version 1.26, for VPC peering-based private clusters that were created after 2020-08, the Konnectivity service will be initialized but not used. Traffic from kube-apiserver to nodes continues to route directly.

May 02, 2023

The managed Cloud Storage FUSE CSI driver for GKE is now available in Preview in GKE versions 1.26.3 and later. You can use this driver to consume Cloud Storage buckets for GKE workloads.

We're working on automatically enabling the PD CSI Driver on upgrades to 1.25, for clusters with the add-on disabled. There are no cost implications for enabling the driver, and it requests only a small amount of node resources. This upgrade enables gce-pd volumes to continue working on Kubernetes clusters version 1.25 and greater. You can still disable the driver manually after upgrade. For more details, please read here.

April 19, 2023

(2023-R09) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

Version 1.25.7-gke.1000 is now the default version.
The following control plane and node versions are now available:
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.10-gke.2300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.2-gke.1000 with this release.

Stable channel

Version 1.24.11-gke.1000 is now available in the Stable channel.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.10-gke.2300 with this release.

Regular channel

Version 1.25.7-gke.1000 is now the default version in the Regular channel.
The following versions are now available in the Regular channel:
- 1.23.17-gke.300
- 1.26.2-gke.1000
Version 1.23.16-gke.2500 is no longer available in the Regular channel.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.17-gke.300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.23.17-gke.300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.2-gke.1000 with this release.

Rapid channel

Version 1.26.3-gke.400 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.6100
- 1.23.16-gke.2500
- 1.24.12-gke.500
- 1.25.7-gke.1000
- 1.26.2-gke.1000
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.7500 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.300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.12-gke.1000 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.500 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.500 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.400 with this release.

April 14, 2023

Pods bound to Preemptible and Spot nodes are now automatically deleted from the Kubernetes API server after the Preemptible or Spot instance is preempted. This is available in GKE versions:

1.25.7-gke.1000 or later
1.26.2-gke.1000 or later

April 11, 2023

Two new vulnerabilities, CVE-2023-0240 and CVE-2023-23586, have been discovered in the Linux kernel that could allow an unprivileged user to escalate privileges. For more information, see the GCP-2023-003 security bulletin.

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.

The new release of the GKE Gateway controller (2023-R01) is now generally available. With this release, the GKE Gateway controller will provide the following new capabilities:

Gateway API on Autopilot clusters by default (GKE 1.26+)
The Global External HTTP(S) Load Balancer GatewayClass graduates to GA
Global Access for the gke-l7-rilb GatewayClass
SSL Policies
HTTP-to-HTTPS redirect
Cloud Armor integration

You can check all the supported capabilities per GatewayClass in this page.

April 05, 2023

The g2-standard machine family with NVIDIA L4 is available in Preview for node pools in clusters running GKE version 1.22 and later. To select the machine family, use the --machine-type flag in your create command.

April 03, 2023

GKE now supports a streamlined Fleet registration process, allowing users to register their clusters to a Fleet directly when clusters are created using the gcloud command. For more information, see Register a GKE cluster to your fleet.

March 31, 2023

(2023-R08) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

The following control plane versions are now available:
The following node versions are now available:
Version 1.24.10-gke.2300 is now the default version.
The following control plane versions are no longer available:
- 1.21.14-gke.14600
- 1.22.17-gke.4000
- 1.22.17-gke.4300
- 1.23.14-gke.1800
- 1.23.15-gke.1400
- 1.23.15-gke.1900
- 1.23.16-gke.200
- 1.23.16-gke.1100
- 1.24.9-gke.2000
- 1.25.6-gke.1000
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.20 to 1.21.14-gke.15800 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.22.17-gke.5400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.22 to 1.23.16-gke.1400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.23 to 1.23.16-gke.1400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.24 to 1.24.10-gke.2300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.25 to 1.25.7-gke.1000 with this release.

Stable channel

The following versions are now available in the Stable channel:
- 1.21.14-gke.18100
- 1.22.17-gke.5400
Version 1.24.10-gke.2300 is now the default version in the Stable channel.
The following versions are no longer available in the Stable channel:
- 1.21.14-gke.14600
- 1.22.17-gke.4000
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.20 to 1.21.14-gke.15800 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.22.17-gke.5400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to 1.23.16-gke.1400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to 1.24.10-gke.2300 with this release.

Regular channel

The following versions are now available in the Regular channel:
Version 1.24.10-gke.2300 is now the default version in the Regular channel.
The following versions are no longer available in the Regular channel:
- 1.21.14-gke.18100
- 1.22.17-gke.5400
- 1.24.9-gke.3200
- 1.25.6-gke.1000
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.20 to 1.21.14-gke.18800 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.22.17-gke.6100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to 1.23.16-gke.2500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to 1.24.10-gke.2300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to 1.24.10-gke.2300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to 1.25.7-gke.1000 with this release.

Rapid channel

The following versions are now available in the Rapid channel:
Version 1.26.2-gke.1000 is now the default version in the Rapid channel.
The following versions are no longer available in the Rapid channel:
- 1.22.17-gke.5400
- 1.23.16-gke.1400
- 1.24.11-gke.1000
- 1.25.6-gke.1000
- 1.26.1-gke.1500
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.22.17-gke.6100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to 1.23.16-gke.2500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to 1.24.12-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 1.25.7-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 1.25.7-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 1.26.2-gke.1000 with this release.

March 30, 2023

The me-central1 region in Doha, Qatar is now available.

March 29, 2023

Starting from GKE 1.26, cluster autoscaler can drain Pods from multiple nodes in parallel. The removal criteria are not changing, so the end state after scale down is going to be the same, but it will be achieved faster.

March 23, 2023

The europe-west12 region in Turin, Italy is now available.

March 22, 2023

(2023-R07) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

The following control plane and node versions are now available:
The following control plane versions are no longer available:
- 1.21.14-gke.14100
- 1.22.17-gke.3100
- 1.25.6-gke.200
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.20 to 1.21.14-gke.14600 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.22.17-gke.4000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.22 to 1.22.17-gke.4000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.25 to 1.25.6-gke.1000 with this release.

Stable channel

The following versions are now available in the Stable channel:
The following versions are no longer available in the Stable channel:
- 1.22.17-gke.3100
- 1.23.16-gke.1100
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.22.17-gke.4000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to 1.23.16-gke.1400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to 1.23.16-gke.1400 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:
- 1.21.14-gke.15800
- 1.22.17-gke.4000
- 1.23.16-gke.1100
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.20 to 1.21.14-gke.18100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.22.17-gke.5400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to 1.23.16-gke.2500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to 1.23.16-gke.2500 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:
- 1.21.14-gke.18100
- 1.22.17-gke.4300
- 1.24.10-gke.2300
- 1.25.6-gke.200
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.20 to 1.21.14-gke.18800 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.22.17-gke.5400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to 1.23.16-gke.2500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to 1.24.11-gke.1000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to 1.25.6-gke.1000 with this release.

March 21, 2023

Starting on March 21, 2023, traffic to k8s.gcr.io will be redirected to registry.k8s.io, following the community announcement. This change will happen gradually to reduce disruption, and should be transparent to the majority of GKE clusters.

To check for edge cases, and mitigate a potential impact, follow the step-by-step guidance in k8s.gcr.io Redirect to registry.k8s.io - What You Need to Know.

March 07, 2023

Backend Service-based external Network load balancers are now generally available with GKE. Regional Backend Service is a foundational element of a Google Cloud Load Balancer and using it for your external LoadBalancer Services will unlock new capabilities going forward. To learn more, see how to deploy a backend service-based external network load balancer.

March 03, 2023

(2023-R06) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

The following control plane and node versions are now available:
The following control plane versions are no longer available:
- 1.23.13-gke.900
- 1.23.14-gke.401
- 1.24.8-gke.2000
- 1.24.9-gke.1500
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.9-gke.3200 with this release.

Stable channel

Version 1.24.9-gke.3200 is now the default version in the Stable channel.
The following versions are now available in the Stable channel:
- 1.21.14-gke.15800
- 1.23.16-gke.1100
The following versions are no longer available in the Stable channel:
- 1.21.14-gke.14100
- 1.23.14-gke.1800
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.14600 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.21.14-gke.14600 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.16-gke.1100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.23.16-gke.1100 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:
- 1.22.17-gke.3100
- 1.23.16-gke.200
- 1.25.6-gke.200
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.17-gke.4000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.16-gke.1100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.23.16-gke.1100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.6-gke.1000 with this release.

Rapid channel

Version 1.26.1-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.15800
- 1.22.17-gke.4000
- 1.23.16-gke.1100
- 1.24.10-gke.1200
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.18100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.17-gke.4300 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.1400 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.10-gke.2300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.10-gke.2300 with this release.

March 01, 2023

A new vulnerability (CVE-2022-4696) has been discovered in the Linux kernel that can lead to a privilege escalation on the node. GKE clusters, including Autopilot clusters, are impacted. GKE clusters using GKE Sandbox are not affected. For instructions and more details, see the GKE security bulletin.

February 22, 2023

(2023-R05) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

Version 1.24.9-gke.3200 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.7100
- 1.22.15-gke.1000
- 1.22.15-gke.2500
- 1.22.16-gke.1300
- 1.22.16-gke.2000
- 1.25.5-gke.2000
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled 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 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 will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.22.17-gke.3100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.6-gke.200 with this release.

Stable channel

The following versions are now available in the Stable channel:
- 1.22.17-gke.3100
- 1.24.9-gke.3200
The following versions are no longer available in the Stable channel:
- 1.22.16-gke.2000
- 1.24.9-gke.1500
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable 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 Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.22.17-gke.3100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.9-gke.3200 with this release.

Regular channel

Version 1.24.9-gke.3200 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.14600
- 1.22.16-gke.2000
- 1.23.14-gke.1800
- 1.24.9-gke.2000
- 1.25.5-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.15800 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.17-gke.3100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.16-gke.200 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.9-gke.3200 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.3200 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.6-gke.200 with this release.

Rapid channel

Version 1.25.6-gke.1000 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.3100
- 1.23.16-gke.200
- 1.24.9-gke.3200
- 1.26.1-gke.200
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.4000 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.1100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.10-gke.1200 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.25.6-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 1.25.6-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 1.26.1-gke.1500 with this release.

February 17, 2023

In Standard clusters with GKE version 1.26 and later, you can now audit workloads to validate if they are compatible with Autopilot clusters. Use kubectl get audit to see the cluster objects.

February 10, 2023

(2023-R04) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

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

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?

February 03, 2023

The POD_FINDER_IP_MISMATCH errors that caused Pods to fail to access Google Cloud APIs are fixed in the following GKE versions in the Rapid release channel:

1.22.17-gke.3100 or later
1.23.16-gke.200 or later
1.24.9-gke.3200 or later
1.25.6-gke.200 or later
1.26.1-gke.400 or later

To fix the issue, upgrade your nodes to any of these versions.

February 02, 2023

(2023-R03) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

The following control plane and node versions are now available:
The following control plane versions are no longer available:
- 1.21.14-gke.4300
- 1.25.4-gke.2100
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.20 to version 1.21.14-gke.5300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.15-gke.2500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.22.15-gke.2500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.5-gke.1500 with this release.

Stable channel

The following versions are now available in the Stable channel:
- 1.21.14-gke.14100
- 1.24.9-gke.1500
The following versions are no longer available in the Stable channel:
- 1.21.14-gke.4300
- 1.24.8-gke.401
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.5300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.21.14-gke.5300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.9-gke.1500 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:
- 1.21.14-gke.5300
- 1.24.7-gke.900
- 1.25.4-gke.2100
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.7100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.15-gke.2500 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 1.23 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 1.25 to version 1.25.5-gke.2000 with this release.

Rapid channel

Version 1.25.5-gke.2000 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.14600
- 1.22.16-gke.1300
- 1.23.14-gke.1800
- 1.24.8-gke.401
- 1.25.5-gke.1500
- 1.26.0-gke.2000
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.15800 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.2000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.15-gke.1400 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.2000 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.2000 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.2000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.26 to version 1.26.1-gke.200 with this release.

January 27, 2023

If containerd restarts on a node that has existing running Pods that use Workload Identity, those specific Pods might fail to access Google Cloud APIs and might return POD_FINDER_IP_MISMATCH errors. This affects nodes with the following GKE versions:

1.22.16-gke.2100 and later
1.23.14-gke.1900 and later
1.24.7-gke.700 and later
1.25.0 and later
1.26.0 and later

This issue will be fixed in a future release

Starting from GKE control plane versions 1.26.0-gke.2200, 1.25.5-gke.2200, 1.24.9-gke.2200 or later, SingleStack IPv6 and DualStack (IPv4/IPv6) services, stub domains, and upstream nameservers are supported with Cloud DNS for GKE.

A known issue with kube-dns receiving a DNS response from an upstream DNS resolver with a large TTL has been fixed. For more information, see Large TTL from DNS upstream servers

Public zonal clusters upgraded to GKE versions 1.24 and later will eventually be migrated to use Private Service Connect (PSC) for private control plane communication. There is no price increase for using GKE public clusters running on PSC.

January 26, 2023

The Balanced compute class is now generally available in Autopilot clusters running GKE version 1.25 and later.

You can now specify a minimum CPU platform in the Balanced compute class in Autopilot clusters running GKE version 1.25 and later if your workloads have specialized CPU requirements such as a high base frequency or optimized power management functionality. For instructions, refer to Choose a minimum CPU platform.

January 24, 2023

You can now expose randomly assigned host ports in Pods on GKE Autopilot running version 1.24.7-gke.1200 and later or 1.25.3-gke.1100 and later.

January 17, 2023

You can now attach ephemeral and block devices backed by Local NVMe SSDs during GKE node pool creation, using the Ephemeral Storage Local SSD API and the Local NVMe SSD Block API respectively, with node version 1.25.3-gke.1800 or later.

January 13, 2023

(2023-R02) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

Version 1.24.8-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:
- 1.23.11-gke.300
- 1.23.12-gke.100
- 1.23.12-gke.1600
- 1.24.5-gke.600
- 1.24.6-gke.1500
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.23 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 1.24.7-gke.900 with this release.

Stable channel

Version 1.23.14-gke.1800 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 1.23 to version 1.23.14-gke.1800 with this release.

Regular channel

Version 1.24.8-gke.2000 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 1.22 to version 1.23.14-gke.401 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.8-gke.2000 with this release.

Rapid channel

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.

January 12, 2023

Two new vulnerabilities (CVE-2022-3786 and CVE-2022-3602) have been discovered in OpenSSL v3.0.6 that can potentially cause a crash. While this has been rated a High in the NVD database, GKE endpoints use boringSSL or an older version of OpenSSL that is not affected, so the rating has been reduced to a Medium for GKE. For more information, refer to the GCP-2022-026 security bulletin.

January 09, 2023

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

New node pools created on 1.26 will default to use the cgroupv2 resource management subsystem enabling the latest container resource management capabilities. Node System Configuration can be used to switch between cgroup settings.

Windows Server 2022 OS image is generally available on GKE. You can now create Windows Node pools with Windows Server 2022 OS images using the command line. For more information, see Creating a cluster using Windows Server node pools.

January 05, 2023

2023-01-09 update: Added an additional Notable change to 1.26 for this release note.

(2023-R01) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

The following control plane and node versions are now available:
The following control plane versions are no longer available:
- 1.22.15-gke.100
- 1.25.3-gke.800
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.15-gke.1000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.22.15-gke.1000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.4-gke.2100 with this release.

Stable channel

The following versions are now available in the Stable channel:
The following versions are no longer available in the Stable channel:
- 1.22.15-gke.100
- 1.23.11-gke.300
- 1.24.7-gke.900
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.15-gke.2500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.22.15-gke.2500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.8-gke.401 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:
- 1.22.15-gke.100
- 1.23.13-gke.900
- 1.24.5-gke.600
- 1.25.3-gke.800
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.15-gke.1000 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.401 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.23.14-gke.401 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.4-gke.2100 with this release.

Rapid channel

Version 1.25.4-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:
- 1.21.14-gke.8500
- 1.22.15-gke.1000
- 1.23.13-gke.900
- 1.24.6-gke.1500
- 1.25.4-gke.1600
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.14100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.15-gke.2500 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.401 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.7-gke.900 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.7-gke.900 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.4-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 1.26.0-gke.1500 with this release.

1.26 is now available in the Rapid channel

Kubernetes 1.26 is now available in the Rapid channel. Before upgrading, read the Kubernetes 1.26 Release Notes, especially the action required and deprecation sections.

Notable changes

kubectl 1.26 removes compiled-in support for Azure and Google Cloud authentication methods.
- The removal doesn't affect operators that are deployed in the cluster and use Kubernetes service accounts to communicate with the API server, Kubernetes service account authentication continues to work as-is.
- GKE has released an updated authentication plugin, gke-gcloud-auth-plugin. This plugin uses the client-go Credential Plugins framework to provide authentication tokens to communicate with GKE clusters.
- For more information, see Deprecated authentication plugin for Kubernetes clients and Install required plugins.
- New node pools created on 1.26 will default to use the cgroupv2 resource management subsystem enabling the latest container resource management capabilities. Node System Configuration can be used to switch between cgroup settings.

New API versions

flowcontrol.apiserver.k8s.io/v1beta3 FlowSchema, PriorityLevelConfiguration
- The PriorityLevelConfiguration spec.limited.assuredConcurrencyShares field is renamed to spec.limited.nominalConcurrencyShares

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

Removed API versions

The following Beta versions of graduated APIs will be removed in 1.26 in favor of newer versions:

flowcontrol.apiserver.k8s.io/v1beta1 FlowSchema, PriorityLevelConfiguration
- deprecated since 1.23
- use flowcontrol.apiserver.k8s.io/v1beta2 instead, available since 1.23
autoscaling/v2beta2 HorizontalPodAutoscaler
- deprecated since 1.23
- use autoscaling/v2 instead, available since 1.23 (or autoscaling/v1)

January 04, 2023

You can now run GPU-based workloads in GA in Autopilot clusters that use GKE version 1.24.2-gke.1800 and later.

December 22, 2022

Dual-stack clusters in GKE are now generally available. Dual-stack networking is supported on both Standard and Autopilot clusters. To learn more, see Use an IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack network to create a dual-stack cluster.

December 21, 2022

A new vulnerability (CVE-2022-2602) has been discovered in the io_uring subsystem in the Linux kernel that can allow an attacker to potentially execute arbitrary code. For more information, see the GCP-2022-025 security bulletin.

You can now enable NCCL Fast Socket on your multi-GPU workloads. NCCL Fast Socket is a transport layer plugin designed to improve NVIDIA Collective Communication Library (NCCL) performance on Google Cloud. To enable NCCL Fast Socket, you must be using a GKE Standard cluster with control plane version 1.25.2-gke.1700 or later. For more information, see Improve workload efficiency using NCCL Fast Socket.

December 19, 2022

CVE-2022-37434, CVE-2022-40674, CVE-2022-1586, CVE-2022-1587 have been patched in the PD CSI driver in 1.22, 1.23, 1.24 for newly created clusters. CVE-2022-37434, CVE-2021-3999, CVE-2022-40674, CVE-2022-1586, CVE-2022-1587 have been patched in the PD CSI driver in 1.25 for newly created clusters.

December 16, 2022

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.

December 14, 2022

(2022-R28) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

Version 1.24.7-gke.900 is now the default version
The following control plane and node versions are now available:
The following control plane versions are no longer available:
- 1.22.13-gke.1000
- 1.22.14-gke.300
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.23.13-gke.900 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.3-gke.800 with this release.

Stable channel

Version 1.23.13-gke.900 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 1.23 to version 1.23.13-gke.900 with this release.

Regular channel

Version 1.24.7-gke.900 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:
- 1.22.13-gke.1000
- 1.23.12-gke.1600
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.15-gke.100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.13-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 1.23.13-gke.900 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.7-gke.900 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.3-gke.800 with this release.

Rapid channel

Version 1.25.4-gke.1600 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:
- 1.22.15-gke.100
- 1.23.12-gke.1600
- 1.24.5-gke.600
- 1.25.3-gke.800
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.15-gke.1000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.13-gke.900 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.23.13-gke.900 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.4-gke.1600 with this release.

Cloud DNS for GKE (cluster scope) is now Generally Available. You can now configure GKE clusters with control plane version 1.24.7-gke.800, 1.25.3-gke.700 or later to use Cloud DNS as the DNS provider for in-cluster name resolution, and replace the existing DNS service based on kube-dns.

GKE Autopilot clusters may now migrate the cluster's datapath provider to Dataplane V2. Migration is triggered during a control plane upgrade (see version requirements below). The migration is complete once all nodes running the legacy datapath have been recreated. Node pools created after the control plane upgrade will be created using Dataplane V2.

For clusters running 1.24 without Dataplane V2, upgrading to 1.24.7-gke.300 or a higher 1.24 version will begin the migration to Dataplane V2.
For clusters running 1.25 without Dataplane V2, upgrading to 1.25.3-gke.200 or a higher 1.25 version will begin the migration to Dataplane V2.

To determine whether you are in the process of migrating the datapath, run:

gcloud container clusters describe <CLUSTER> --region <REGION> --project <PROJECT> --format="value(networkConfig.datapathProvider)"

Clusters migrating to Dataplane V2 will have the datapath provider field of the cluster set to MIGRATE_TO_ADVANCED_DATAPATH.

Clusters that have migrated to Dataplane V2 will have the datapath provider field of the cluster set to ADVANCED_DATAPATH.

December 13, 2022

Compact placement policy is now generally available. Set up a compact placement policy to specify that nodes within the node pool should be placed in closer physical proximity to each other within a zone. Having nodes closer to each other can reduce network latency between nodes, which can be useful for tightly-coupled batch workloads.

December 12, 2022

Public clusters upgraded to GKE versions 1.25 and later will eventually be migrated to use Private Service Connect (PSC) for private control plane communication. There is no price increase for using GKE public clusters running on PSC.

December 05, 2022

(2022-R27) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

Version 1.24.5-gke.600 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.3000
- 1.21.14-gke.9500
- 1.22.12-gke.2300
- 1.23.8-gke.1900
- 1.23.9-gke.900
- 1.23.9-gke.2100
- 1.23.10-gke.1000
- 1.24.4-gke.800
The following node version is no longer available: 1.21.14-gke.9500
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.20 to version 1.21.14-gke.4300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.15-gke.100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.23.11-gke.300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.5-gke.600 with this release.

Stable channel

Version 1.23.11-gke.300 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.3000
- 1.22.12-gke.2300
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.4300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.15-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 version 1.24.7-gke.900 with this release.

Regular channel

Version 1.24.5-gke.600 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:
- 1.22.12-gke.2300
- 1.23.12-gke.100
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.13-gke.1000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.12-gke.1600 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.23.12-gke.1600 with this release.

Rapid channel

Version 1.25.3-gke.800 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.7100
- 1.21.14-gke.9500
- 1.22.14-gke.300
- 1.23.12-gke.100
- 1.24.4-gke.800
- 1.25.2-gke.1700
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.8500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.15-gke.100 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.12-gke.1600 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.24.6-gke.1500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to version 1.24.6-gke.1500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.3-gke.800 with this release.

November 29, 2022

Kubernetes control plane logs are now Generally Available. You can now configure GKE clusters with control plane version 1.22.0 or later to export to Cloud Logging logs emitted by the Kubernetes API server, Scheduler, and Controller Manager.

These logs are stored in Cloud Logging and can be queried in the Cloud Logging Log Explorer or Cloud Logging API. These logs can also be sent to Google Cloud Storage, BigQuery, or Pub/Sub using the Log Router.

You can now use deprecation insights to identify clusters on versions 1.23 and earlier that use Docker-based node images, which are unsupported on GKE version 1.24 and later.

November 22, 2022

GKE version 1.21.14-gke.9500 has an issue where Pods in certain conditions might get stuck terminating indefinitely, due to a Linux kernel bug. The version has been removed and is no longer available for new clusters. If your node pools are running 1.21.14-gke.9500 and experience the issue, we recommend downgrading the node pool to 1.21.14-gke.8500.

November 21, 2022

The Logs tab available for each cluster on the Kubernetes Engine > Clusters page now includes suggested queries for your logs. For more information about using your GKE logs, see Viewing your GKE logs.

November 18, 2022

GKE Autopilot clusters support compact placement policies in version 1.25 and later.

November 17, 2022

GKE Autopilot clusters support signaling to GKE that a particular node is problematic in version 1.24 and later.

November 11, 2022

The Filestore CSI driver has patched the following CVEs for newly created clusters running GKE version 1.23 and later:

CVE-2022-37434
CVE-2019-19126
CVE-2019-25013
CVE-2022-23219
CVE-2021-35942
CVE-2020-10029
CVE-2021-3326
CVE-2022-23218
CVE-2020-1752
CVE-2021-3999
CVE-2020-27618
CVE-2021-27645
CVE-2016-10228
CVE-2020-6096
CVE-2021-33574
CVE-2022-29458

November 10, 2022

You can now use use compact placement for node auto-provisioning in Standard clusters with GKE version 1.25 and later. To learn more, see Use compact placement for node auto-provisioning.

November 09, 2022

GKE Gateway for Single Cluster is now generally available in GKE version 1.24 and later. Use the Gateway API to express the intent of your inbound HTTP(S) traffic into your GKE cluster and the Gateway controller will instrument and fully manage the external and/or internal HTTP(S) load balancer(s) that forwards traffic to your applications. For complete details about the GKE Gateway controller, refer to the following documentation.

November 08, 2022

A security vulnerability, CVE-2022-39278, has been discovered in Istio, which is used in Anthos Service Mesh, that allows a malicious attacker to crash the control plane. GKE doesn't ship with Istio and isn't affected by this vulnerability. However, if you separately installed Anthos Service Mesh or Istio in your GKE cluster, refer to the Anthos Service Mesh security bulletin for more information.

November 07, 2022

Internal load balancer with GKE subsetting or external load balancer with regional backend services (RBS): k8s2-[cluster-id]-[namespace]-[service-name]-[suffixhash]
Internal load balancer without GKE subsetting or external load balancer with target pool: k8s-fw-[loadbalancer-hash]

These rules now include the load balancer IP address in the destination ranges field to further control the inbound connections to the nodes. You can use the gcloud compute firewall-rules describe command to check a relevant firewall. The new field in the output is similar to the following:

destinationRanges:
- [LOADBALANCER_VIRTUAL_IP_ADDRESS]

November 04, 2022

(2022-R26) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

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.

November 03, 2022

You can now easily identify clusters that use certificates incompatible with Kubernetes version 1.23. Kubernetes 1.23 deprecation insights are now available in Preview for clusters of at least version 1.22.6-gke.1000.

October 28, 2022

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.

October 27, 2022

A new vulnerability, CVE-2022-3176, has been discovered in the Linux kernel that can lead to local privilege escalation. This vulnerability allows an unprivileged user to achieve full container breakout to root on the node. For instructions and more details, see the GKE security bulletin.

October 19, 2022

(2022-R25) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

Version 1.23.8-gke.1900 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.2700
- 1.22.12-gke.300
- 1.24.2-gke.1900
- 1.24.3-gke.200
- 1.24.3-gke.900
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.20 to 1.21.14-gke.3000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.22.12-gke.2300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.22 to 1.22.12-gke.2300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.24 to 1.24.3-gke.2100 with this release.

Stable channel

Version 1.22.12-gke.2300 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.2700
- 1.22.12-gke.1200
- 1.23.8-gke.1900
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.20 to 1.21.14-gke.3000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.22.12-gke.2300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to 1.22.12-gke.2300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to 1.23.11-gke.300 with this release.

Regular channel

Version 1.23.8-gke.1900 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.2700
- 1.22.12-gke.300
- 1.24.2-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.4300 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.4300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to 1.23.8-gke.1900 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to 1.24.5-gke.600 with this release.

Rapid channel

Version 1.24.4-gke.800 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.4300
- 1.22.12-gke.2300
- 1.23.10-gke.1000
- 1.24.3-gke.900
- 1.25.0-gke.1100
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid 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 Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to 1.22.13-gke.1000 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to 1.23.11-gke.300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.23 to 1.24.4-gke.800 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.24 to 1.24.4-gke.800 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to 1.25.1-gke.500 with this release.

October 14, 2022

GKE Cost Allocation has been released for general availability. With GKE Cost Allocation, you can see cost breakdowns in clusters for namespaces, and pod labels for utilized CPU and MEM. For complete details, refer to View detailed breakdown of cluster costs.

October 12, 2022

Creating public clusters on GKE versions 1.23 or later might fail with the following error due to a missing API permission in certain compliance regimes (FedRAMP High, US Regions and Support, EU Regions and Support, EU Regions and Support with Sovereign Controls):

ManagedResourceService.AddServiceBundle, PERMISSION_DENIED'/> APPLICATION_ERROR;google.cloud.servicedirectory.v1beta1/ManagedResourceService.AddServiceBundle;Request is disallowed by organization's constraints/gcp.restrictServiceUsage constraint for 'projects/<projectID> attempting to use service 'servicedirectory.googleapis.com'

To fix this issue, refer to the October 5, 2022 Assured Workloads release note.

October 05, 2022

(2022-R24) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

The following control plane and node versions are now available:

Stable channel

The following versions are now available in the Stable channel:
- 1.21.14-gke.5300

Regular channel

The following versions are now available in the Regular channel:
- 1.21.14-gke.5300
- 1.22.13-gke.1000

Rapid channel

The following versions are now available in the Rapid channel:

September 30, 2022

You can now run GPU-based workloads in Preview in Autopilot clusters that use GKE version 1.24.2-gke.1800 and later. For more information, see the Google Cloud blog post.

In Autopilot clusters running GKE version 1.24.1-gke.1400 and later, you can now use the Balanced compute class to schedule your workloads that require very high memory or CPU requests.

September 28, 2022

The Calico CNI authentication errors that caused pods to get stuck in Terminating or Pending state (see August 19, 2022 release notes) are fixed in the following GKE versions in the Rapid release channel:

1.24.4-gke.500 or later
1.23.11-gke.300 or later
1.22.14-gke.300 or later

To fix the issue, upgrade your control plane to any of these versions. If you prefer not to use the Rapid channel, open a Google Cloud Support ticket to have your cluster patched internally.

GKE control plane metrics is now available for clusters running Kubernetes control plane version 1.22.13 or later.

September 23, 2022

(2022-R23) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

Version 1.22.12-gke.2300 is now the default version.
The following control plane and node versions are now available:
- 1.22.14-gke.300
- 1.23.11-gke.300
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:
- 1.21.14-gke.4300
- 1.22.12-gke.2300
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:
- 1.22.14-gke.300
- 1.23.11-gke.300
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.

2022-09-22 update: Updated new default versions for the 2022-R22 release in the Stable channel.

September 22, 2022

The a2-ultragpu machine family is available in Preview for node pools in clusters running GKE version 1.24 and later. To select the machine family, use the --machine-type flag in your create command.

September 15, 2022

CVE-2022-2068 has been patched in the Filestore CSI driver for GKE clusters running version 1.23 or later.

Starting from GKE version 1.25 and gke-metrics-agent version 1.0.0, we increase the memory request and limit of gke-metrics-agent to 100 MiB. This change makes the system metrics collection more stable and reliable.

September 14, 2022

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.

Notable changes

Support for the deprecated quobyte and storageOS volume types is removed in 1.25.

Deprecated API versions

These APIs are still served in version 1.25 but are in a deprecation period:

The following Beta versions of graduated APIs will be removed in 1.26 in favor of newer versions:
- flowcontrol.apiserver.k8s.io/v1beta1 FlowSchema, PriorityLevelConfiguration
  - deprecated since 1.23
  - use flowcontrol.apiserver.k8s.io/v1beta2 instead, available since 1.23
- autoscaling/v2beta2 HorizontalPodAutoscaler
  - deprecated since 1.23
  - use autoscaling/v2 instead, available since 1.23 (or autoscaling/v1)
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

Removed API versions

PodSecurityPolicy
- policy/v1beta1 PodSecurityPolicy
- Deprecated in 1.21 and removed in 1.25.
- 1.24 is the last version supporting the beta PodSecurityPolicy feature. Use of this feature must be discontinued before clusters will upgrade to 1.25. See PodSecurityPolicy deprecation for more information.
The following Beta versions of graduated APIs are removed in 1.25 in favor of their newer versions:
- discovery.k8s.io/v1beta1 EndpointSlice, deprecated since 1.21
- policy/v1beta1 PodDisruptionBudget, deprecated since 1.21
- batch/v1beta1 CronJob, deprecated since 1.21
- node.k8s.io/v1beta1 RuntimeClass
- autoscaling/v2beta1 HorizontalPodAutoscaler

September 13, 2022

(2022-R22) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

No channel

Version 1.22.12-gke.300 is now the default version.
The following control plane and node versions are now available:
The following control plane versions are no longer available:
- 1.20.15-gke.11400
- 1.20.15-gke.12800
- 1.20.15-gke.13400
- 1.20.15-gke.13700
- 1.21.13-gke.900
- 1.22.10-gke.600
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.12-gke.500 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.22.12-gke.500 with this release.

Stable channel

Version 1.22.12-gke.500 is now the default version in the Stable channel.
The following versions are now available in the Stable channel:
- 1.21.14-gke.3000
- 1.22.12-gke.1200
The following versions are no longer available in the Stable channel:
- 1.20.15-gke.11400
- 1.21.13-gke.900
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.500 with this release.

Regular channel

Version 1.22.12-gke.300 is now the default version in the Regular channel.
The following versions are now available in the Regular channel:
- 1.21.14-gke.4300
- 1.22.12-gke.2300
The following versions are no longer available in the Regular channel:
- 1.20.15-gke.12800
- 1.21.14-gke.2100
- 1.22.11-gke.400
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.2700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Regular channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.22.12-gke.300 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.300 with this release.

Rapid channel

Version 1.24.3-gke.900 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:
- 1.20.15-gke.13700
- 1.21.14-gke.3000
- 1.22.12-gke.1200
- 1.23.9-gke.2100
- 1.24.3-gke.200
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.4300 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.2300 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.22 to version 1.23.10-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 version 1.24.3-gke.900 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.900 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Rapid channel will be upgraded from version 1.25 to version 1.25.0-gke.1100 with this release.

The me-west1 region in Tel Aviv, Israel is now available.

On GKE Standard clusters using control plane version 1.24.2-gke.300 or later, you can configure the cluster and node pools to deploy an alternative version of the Logging agent designed to maximize logging throughput. The default Logging agent running in each GKE cluster guarantees at least 100 KB per second log throughput per node for system and workload logs. This Logging agent variant provides a 100x improvement, allowing for throughput as high as 10 MB per second on nodes that have at least 2 unused CPU cores.

Additionally, all GKE clusters with system metrics enabled now export a new metric (kubernetes.io/node/logs/input_bytes), which indicates the number of log bytes generated on a node. Using this metric can help you decide which variant of the logging agent makes sense to deploy in your cluster or node pools.

September 08, 2022

The Calico issue link included in the August 19, 2022 release notes issue was updated to the Calico issue #4857.

September 07, 2022

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.

CVE-2021-4160, CVE-2022-1664, CVE-2022-1292, and CVE-2022-29155 have been patched in the Filestore CSI driver for newly created clusters.

September 02, 2022

(2022-R21) Version updates

GKE cluster versions have been updated.

New versions available for upgrades and new clusters

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.2200
- 1.23.7-gke.1400
- 1.23.8-gke.400
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.20 to version 1.21.14-gke.700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version 1.21.14-gke.700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled will be upgraded from version 1.23 to version 1.23.8-gke.1900 with this release.

Stable channel

The following versions are now available in the Stable channel:
Version 1.21.14-gke.700 is now the default version in the Stable channel.
The following versions are no longer available in the Stable channel:
- 1.21.12-gke.2200
- 1.22.10-gke.600
- 1.23.7-gke.1400
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.700 with this release.
Control planes and nodes with auto-upgrade enabled in the Stable channel will be upgraded from version 1.21 to version