The Kubernetes team has released Kubernetes v1.29, which is the version that will be included in Fedora 40. There are four important changes to Kubernetes in Fedora associated with this release that may merit attention.

Displace Kubernetes (K8S) v1.28.6

First, when Kubernetes (K8S) v1.29.1 is pushed to rawhide (scheduled for 26 January 2024), it will displace K8S v1.28.6. This could result in an unplanned upgrade in any K8S clusters running on rawhide-based machines. K8S v1.29 is currently available in COPR for testing.

Future Kubernetes (K8S) v1.28 updates in COPR

Second, future versions of K8S v1.28 will be available in COPR.

Changed Kubernetes (K8S) package structure

Third, the package structure in K8S v1.29 has changed (see BZ #2241263). The revised packages are:

  • kubernetes: contains kubelet and kubeadm
  • kubernetes-client: contains kubectl
  • kubernetes-legacy-systemd: legacy systemd units that are no longer deployed in modern clusters, but available for certain use cases.

The new packages have been tested for correct updates from the old structure, but more testing is always welcome.

Fedora Kubernetes (K8S) update lifecycle

Kubernetes releases three versions per year while Fedora Linux releases two versions per year. The Kubernetes team maintains three concurrent versions which, combined with the Fedora release cadence, creates situations where Fedora has to skip a version (e.g. v1.28). Options are being explored to resolve this dilemma but nothing has been finalized yet.

Additional information about Kubernetes packages in Fedora can be found on the Fedora Quick Docs and the dist-git package source.

Photo by Growtika on Unsplash. Modified by Justin W. Flory. CC BY-SA 4.0.