The programmatic interface to your Google Kubernetes Engine cluster has two
principal APIs: The Google Kubernetes Engine API (and the
associated Google Cloud CLI) and the
Kubernetes API (and the associated kubectl
command-line
interface).
Google Kubernetes Engine API
You use the Google Kubernetes Engine API and Google Cloud CLI primarily for configuring your cluster on Google Cloud. This might include tasks such as:
- Creating a cluster.
- Deleting a cluster.
- Configuring cluster-level networking, such as rotating the cluster control plane IP or enabling network policy enforcement.
- Updating the version of Kubernetes running on the cluster.
- Adding, removing, or modifying node pools in your cluster.
- Setting the machine type or node image used for your cluster's nodes.
- Configuring the geographic zones or regions in which your cluster runs.
Google Kubernetes Engine API versioning
The Google Kubernetes Engine API has three groups:
v1
for generally available features.v1alpha1
for alpha features.v1beta1
for beta features.
Similarly, Google Kubernetes Engine gcloud
commands are divided into three groups:
gcloud container clusters
contain flags for generally available features and use thev1
group.gcloud alpha container clusters
contain flags for alpha features and use thev1alpha1
group.gcloud beta container clusters
contain flags for beta features and use thev1beta1
group.
To learn how to use Google Kubernetes Engine beta features through the v1beta1 API, refer to Google Kubernetes Engine Beta Features.
Google Kubernetes Engine beta features
When new features for Google Kubernetes Engine are released to beta, they are made
available through the v1beta1
API.
To use gcloud
commands for Google Kubernetes Engine beta features, just run
gcloud beta container clusters
commands.
As features "graduate" from beta to general availability, the commands move from
the v1beta1
API to the v1
API, and from the gcloud beta container
track to
the gcloud container
track in the command-line interface). The commands might
undergo small changes during this transition. Any breaking changes are only made
after a deprecation warning and must maintain a three month period of backward
compatibility.
Kubernetes API
You use the Kubernetes API and kubectl
command-line interface for managing
your cluster's containerized applications and workloads. This might include
tasks such as:
- Deploying an application
- Scaling an application
- Configuring intra-cluster networking settings
- Configuring Pods and Containers
- Controlling when Pods are evicted or restarted
Kubernetes API versioning
Kubernetes supports multiple API versions, each at a different API path such as
/api/v1
or /apis/extensions/v1beta1
. You must specify the API version when
writing object configuration files or when interacting with the
API directly.
The API is versioned separately from Kubernetes itself. For more information on API versioning, refer to the Kubernetes API versioning documentation.