What’s new in MicroK8s v1.21?
Kubernetes v1.21 is out! Lot’s of enhancements have gone into this release but this post is not about the new Kubernetes goodies! If you are interested in those head over to K8s release page and/or test drive v1.21 with:
sudo snap install microk8s --classic --channel=1.21/stableThis post is about the extra work that goes into MicroK8s, the lightweight Kubernetes distribution targeting workstations, edge, and CI/CD workflows.
So… what have we been up to since the last release?
- In v1.21 we have a much better story around multi-node cluster storage. We introduced a new add-on for deploying OpenEBS. Give it a try,
microk8s enable openebs. OpenEBS uses iscsi devices and replicates blocks across nodes. Effectively this provides a reliable storage solution for multi-node clusters. If you are not interested in OpenEBS you will be pleased to find that we enhanced the compatibility with CSI plugins. Many CSI plugins assume that kubelet places files under/var/lib/kubelet. This is not the case for MicroK8s where that path is/var/snap/microk8s/common/var/lib/kubelet. Unfortunately most CSI helm charts do not allow you to set the kubelet path. So, on snap install MicroK8s will link/var/lib/kubeletto the MicroK8s kubelet location assuming there is no other K8s distribution on your system. - A lot of work has gone into the dqlite datastore. Mathieu, the new dqlite maintainer addressed memory leaks, data consistency issues and has many more improvements underway! Excited about the future of that project.
- The
microk8s enable gpuadd-on will now use the new nVidia GPU operator. This improves the robustness and compatibility of this add-on as all software dependencies including the nVidia drivers are now taken care by the operator. This approach may be currently rough around the edges so make sure you checkout the known issues. This is the way to go! - OpenFaaS is a new add-on,
microk8s enable openfaas. You can now have the popular serverless framework installed with a single command. microk8s joinnow verifies the certificate of the node it contacts. Forming a cluster is a two step process. You callmicrok8s add-nodeon a node in the cluster, this prints a connection string you need to use on the joining node. The connection string now includes a fingerprint of the SSL certificate of the node in the cluster.- Lots of add-ons got updated, have a look at the release announcement for the full list and versions. Many thanks to the community members and especially @balchua for helping in keeping MicroK8s up-to-date.
- Other updates you will hopefully never notice include the upgrade of containerd to v1.4.4 and core to core18. The memory footprint of MicroK8s is reduced by running all Kubernetes services as go routines instead of systemd services.
Now you know what kept us busy and hopefully you understand what Kubernetes distributions bring into the picture.
Summing up
This release has great potential. It assembles a lot of useful ecosystem components you need to master to become proficient in Kubernetes. Hope you enjoy using it!
Many thanks to @balchua and the rest of the community members that made this release possible. Thank you, @tbertenshaw, @angelnu, @petermetz, @lazyoldbear, @luciimon, @galgalesh, @barosl.
Looking forward for your feedback. Check out our repo, and drop us a line at the Kubernetes Slack, in the #microk8s channel!
Cheers!
