Kubernetes 1.13: Simplified Cluster Management with Kubeadm, Container Storage Interface (CSI), and CoreDNS as Default DNS are Now Generally Available

Monday, December 03, 2018

Author: The 1.13

We’re pleased to announce the delivery of Kubernetes 1.13, our fourth and final release of 2018!

Kubernetes 1.13 has been one of the shortest releases to date at 10 weeks. This release continues to focus on stability and extensibility of Kubernetes with three major features graduating to general availability this cycle in the areas of Storage and Cluster Lifecycle. Notable features graduating in this release include: simplified cluster management with kubeadm, Container Storage Interface (CSI), and CoreDNS as the default DNS.

These stable graduations are an important milestone for users and operators in terms of setting support expectations. In addition, there’s a continual and steady stream of internal improvements and new alpha features that are made available to the community in this release. These features are discussed in the “additional notable features” section below.

Let’s dive into the key features of this release:

Simplified Kubernetes Cluster Management with kubeadm in GA

Most people who have gotten hands-on with Kubernetes have at some point been hands-on with kubeadm. It's an essential tool for managing the cluster lifecycle, from creation to configuration to upgrade; and now kubeadm is officially GA. kubeadm handles the bootstrapping of production clusters on existing hardware and configuring the core Kubernetes components in a best-practice-manner to providing a secure yet easy joining flow for new nodes and supporting easy upgrades. What’s notable about this GA release are the now graduated advanced features, specifically around pluggability and configurability. The scope of kubeadm is to be a toolbox for both admins and automated, higher-level system and this release is a significant step in that direction.

Container Storage Interface (CSI) Goes GA

The Container Storage Interface (

With CSI now stable, plugin authors are developing storage plugins out of core, at their own pace. You can find a list of sample and production drivers in the .

CoreDNS is Now the Default DNS Server for Kubernetes

In 1.11, we announced CoreDNS had reached General Availability for DNS-based service discovery. In 1.13,

CoreDNS is now the recommended DNS solution for Kubernetes 1.13+. The project has switched the common test infrastructure to use CoreDNS by default and we recommend users switching as well. KubeDNS will still be supported for at least one more release, but it's time to start planning your migration. Many OSS installer tools have already made the switch, including

Additional Notable Feature Updates

kubectl to the apiserver in order to fix many of the existing bugs that can't be fixed today.

Each Special Interest Group (SIG) within the community continues to deliver the most-requested enhancements, fixes, and functionality for their respective specialty areas. For a complete list of inclusions by SIG, please visit the .

Availability

Kubernetes 1.13 is available for kubeadm.

Features Blog Series

If you’re interested in exploring these features more in depth, check back tomorrow for our 5 Days of Kubernetes series where we’ll highlight detailed walkthroughs of the following features:

Day 1 - Simplified Kubernetes Cluster Creation with Kubeadm
Day 2 - Out-of-tree CSI Volume Plugins
Day 3 - Switch default DNS plugin to CoreDNS
Day 4 - New CLI Tips and Tricks (Kubectl Diff and APIServer Dry run)
Day 5 - Raw Block Volume

Release team

This release is made possible through the effort of hundreds of individuals who contributed both technical and non-technical content. Special thanks to the

As the Kubernetes community has grown, our release process represents an amazing demonstration of collaboration in open source software development. Kubernetes continues to gain new users at a rapid clip. This growth creates a positive feedback cycle where more contributors commit code creating a more vibrant ecosystem. Kubernetes has over 25,000 individual contributors to date and an active community of more than 51,000 people.