Amazon EKS Kubernetes versions
The Kubernetes project is continually integrating new features, design updates, and bug fixes.
The community releases new Kubernetes minor versions, such as 1.24
. New version
updates are available on average every three months. Each minor version is supported for
approximately twelve months after it's first released.
Available Amazon EKS Kubernetes versions
The following Kubernetes versions are currently available for new Amazon EKS clusters:
-
1.24
-
1.23
-
1.22
-
1.21
If your application doesn't require a specific version of Kubernetes, we recommend that you use the latest available Kubernetes version that's supported by Amazon EKS for your clusters. As new Kubernetes versions become available in Amazon EKS, we recommend that you proactively update your clusters to use the latest available version. For instructions on how to update your cluster, see Updating an Amazon EKS cluster Kubernetes version. For more information about Kubernetes releases, see Amazon EKS Kubernetes release calendar and Amazon EKS version support and FAQ.
Starting with the Kubernetes version 1.24
launch, officially published
Amazon EKS AMIs include containerd
as the only runtime. Kubernetes versions lower
than 1.24
use Docker as the default runtime. However,
these versions have a bootstrap flag option that you can use test out your workloads
on any supported cluster with containerd
. For more information, see
Amazon EKS ended support for
Dockershim.
Kubernetes 1.24
Kubernetes 1.24
is now available in Amazon EKS. For more information about Kubernetes
1.24
, see the official release announcement
Starting with Kubernetes 1.24
, new beta APIs aren't enabled in clusters by
default. By default, existing beta APIs and new versions of existing beta APIs
continue to be enabled. Amazon EKS follows the same behavior as upstream Kubernetes
1.24
. The feature gates that control new features for both new and
existing API operations are enabled by default. This is in alignment with upstream
Kubernetes. For more information, see KEP-3136: Beta APIs Are Off by Default
Support for Container Runtime Interface (CRI) for Docker (also
known as Dockershim) is removed from Kubernetes 1.24
. Amazon EKS
official AMIs have containerd as the only runtime. Before moving to
Amazon EKS 1.24
or higher, you must remove any reference to bootstrap script
flags that aren't supported anymore. For more information, see Amazon EKS ended support for
Dockershim.
In Kubernetes 1.23
and earlier, kubelet
serving certificates
with unverifiable IP and DNS Subject Alternative Names (SANs) are automatically
issued with unverifiable SANs. These unverifiable SANs are omitted from the
provisioned certificate. In version 1.24
and later clusters,
kubelet
serving certificates aren't issued if any SAN can't be
verified. This prevents kubectl
exec and kubectl
logs
commands from working. For more information, see Certificate signing considerations before upgrading
your cluster to Kubernetes 1.24.
-
You can use Topology Aware Hints to indicate your preference for keeping traffic in zone when cluster worker nodes are deployed across multiple availability zones. Routing traffic within a zone can help reduce costs and improve network performance. By default, Topology Aware Hints are enabled in Amazon EKS
1.24
. For more information, see Topology Aware Hintsin the Kubernetes documentation. -
The
PodSecurityPolicy
(PSP) is scheduled for removal in Kubernetes1.25
. PSPs are being replaced with Pod Security Admission (PSA). PSA is a built-in admission controller that uses the security controls that are outlined in the Pod Security Standards (PSS) . PSA and PSS are both beta features and are enabled in Amazon EKS by default. To address the removal of PSP in version 1.25
, we recommend that you implement PSS in Amazon EKS. For more information, see Implementing Pod Security Standards in Amazon EKSon the AWS blog. -
The
client.authentication.k8s.io/v1alpha1
ExecCredential is removed in Kubernetes1.24
. The ExecCredential API was generally available in Kubernetes1.22
. If you use a client-go credential plugin that relies on thev1alpha1
API, contact the distributor of your plugin on how to migrate to thev1
API. -
For Kubernetes
1.24
, we contributed a feature to the upstream Cluster Autoscaler project that simplifies scaling Amazon EKS managed node groups to and from zero nodes. Previously, for the Cluster Autoscaler to understand the resources, labels, and taints of a managed node group that was scaled to zero nodes, you needed to tag the underlying Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling group with the details of the nodes that it was responsible for. Now, when there are no running nodes in the managed node group, the Cluster Autoscaler calls the Amazon EKSDescribeNodegroup
API operation. This API operation provides the information that the Cluster Autoscaler requires of the managed node group's resources, labels, and taints. This feature requires that you add theeks:DescribeNodegroup
permission to the Cluster Autoscaler service account IAM policy. When the value of a Cluster Autoscaler tag on the Auto Scaling group powering an Amazon EKS managed node group conflicts with the node group itself, the Cluster Autoscaler prefers the value of the Auto Scaling group tag. This is so that you can override values as needed. For more information, see Autoscaling. -
If you intend to use Inferentia or Trainium instance types with Amazon EKS
1.24
, you must upgrade to the AWS Neuron device plugin version 1.9.3.0 or later. For more information, see Neuron K8 release [1.9.3.0]in the AWS Neuron Documentation.
For the complete Kubernetes 1.24
changelog, see https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/master/CHANGELOG/CHANGELOG-1.24.md#changelog-since-v1230
Kubernetes 1.23
Kubernetes 1.23
is now available in Amazon EKS. For more information about Kubernetes
1.23
, see the official release announcement
The Kubernetes in-tree to container storage interface (CSI) volume migration feature is
enabled. This feature enables the replacement of existing Kubernetes in-tree storage
plugins for Amazon EBS with a corresponding Amazon EBS CSI driver. For more information, see
Kubernetes 1.17 Feature: Kubernetes In-Tree to CSI Volume Migration Moves to Beta
The feature translates in-tree APIs to equivalent CSI APIs and delegates
operations to a replacement CSI driver. With this feature, if you use existing
StorageClass
, PersistentVolume
, and
PersistentVolumeClaim
objects that belong to these workloads, there
likely won't be any noticeable change. The feature enables Kubernetes to delegate all
storage management operations from the in-tree plugin to the CSI driver. If you use
Amazon EBS volumes in an existing cluster, install the Amazon EBS CSI driver in your cluster
before you update your cluster to version 1.23
. If you don't install
the driver before updating an existing cluster, interruptions to your workloads
might occur. If you plan to deploy workloads that use Amazon EBS volumes in a new
1.23
cluster, install the Amazon EBS CSI driver in your cluster before
deploying the workloads your cluster. For instructions on how to install the Amazon EBS
CSI driver on your cluster, see Amazon EBS CSI driver.
For frequently asked questions about the migration feature, see Amazon EBS CSI migration frequently asked
questions.
Amazon EKS Fargate pod launches might break for pod specs with maximum container resource limits exceeding the sum of requested resources. For guaranteed scheduling, the maximum of resource limits should always be less than the sum of the requested resources.
-
Kubernetes stopped supporting
dockershim
in version1.20
and removeddockershim
in version1.24
. For more information, see Kubernetes is Moving on From Dockershim: Commitments and Next Stepsin the Kubernetes blog. Amazon EKS will end support for dockershim
starting in Amazon EKS version1.24
. Starting with Amazon EKS version1.24
, Amazon EKS official AMIs will havecontainerd
as the only runtime.Even though Amazon EKS version
1.23
continues to supportdockershim
, we recommend that you start testing your applications now to identify and remove any Docker dependencies. This way, you are prepared to update your cluster to version1.24
. For more information aboutdockershim
removal, see Amazon EKS ended support for Dockershim. -
Kubernetes graduated
IPv4
/IPv6
dual-stack networking for pods, services, and nodes to general availability. However, Amazon EKS and the Amazon VPC CNI plugin for Kubernetes don't support dual-stack networking. Your clusters can assignIPv4
orIPv6
addresses to pods and services, but can't assign both address types. -
Kubernetes graduated the Pod Security Admission (PSA) feature to beta. The feature is enabled by default. For more information, see Pod Security Admission
in the Kubernetes documentation. PSA replaces the Pod Security Policy (PSP) admission controller. The PSP admission controller isn't supported and is scheduled for removal in Kubernetes version 1.25
.The PSP admission controller enforces pod security standards on pods in a namespace based on specific namespace labels that set the enforcement level. For more information, see Pod Security Standards (PSS) and Pod Security Admission (PSA)
in the Amazon EKS best practices guide. -
The
kube-proxy
image deployed with clusters is now the minimal base imagemaintained by Amazon EKS Distro (EKS-D). The image contains minimal packages and doesn't have shells or package managers. -
Kubernetes graduated ephemeral containers to beta. Ephemeral containers are temporary containers that run in the same namespace as an existing pod. You can use them to observe the state of pods and containers for troubleshooting and debugging purposes. This is especially useful for interactive troubleshooting when
kubectl exec
is insufficient because either a container has crashed or a container image doesn't include debugging utilities. An example of a container that includes a debugging utility is distroless images. For more information, see Debugging with an ephemeral debug container in the Kubernetes documentation. -
Kubernetes graduated the
HorizontalPodAutoscaler
autoscaling/v2
stable API to general availability. TheHorizontalPodAutoscaler
autoscaling/v2beta2
API is deprecated. It will be unavailable in1.26
.
For the complete Kubernetes 1.23
changelog, see https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/master/CHANGELOG/CHANGELOG-1.23.md#changelog-since-v1220
Kubernetes 1.22
Kubernetes 1.22
is now available in Amazon EKS. For more information about Kubernetes
1.22
, see the official release announcement
BoundServiceAccountTokenVolume
1.22
. This feature improves
security of service account tokens. It allows workloads that are running on Kubernetes to
request JSON web tokens that are audience, time, and key bound. Service account
tokens now have an expiration of one hour. In previous Kubernetes versions, they didn't
have an expiration. This means that clients that rely on these tokens must refresh
the tokens within an hour. The following Kubernetes
client SDKs
Go version
0.15.7
and laterPython version
12.0.0
and laterJava version
9.0.0
and laterJavaScript version
0.10.3
and laterRuby
master
branchHaskell version
0.3.0.0
C# version
7.0.5
and later
If your workload is using an older client version, then you must update it. To
enable a smooth migration of clients to the newer time-bound service account tokens,
Kubernetes version 1.22
adds an extended expiry period to the service
account token over the default one hour. For Amazon EKS clusters, the extended expiry
period is 90 days. Your Amazon EKS cluster's Kubernetes API server rejects requests with
tokens older than 90 days. We recommend that you check your applications and their
dependencies. Make sure that the Kubernetes client SDKs are the same or later than
the versions listed previously. For instructions about how to identify
pods that are using stale tokens, see Kubernetes service accounts.
-
Kubernetes
1.22
removes a number of APIs that are no longer available. You might need to make changes to your application before you upgrade to Amazon EKS version1.22
. Follow the Kubernetes version 1.22 prerequisites carefully before updating your cluster. -
The Ingress API versions
extensions/v1beta1
andnetworking.k8s.io/v1beta1
have been removed in Kubernetes1.22
. If you're using the AWS Load Balancer Controller, you must upgrade to at least version 2.4.1
before you upgrade your Amazon EKS clusters to version 1.22
. Additionally, you must modify Ingress manifeststo use apiVersion
networking.k8s.io/v1
. This has been available since Kubernetes version1.19
. For more information about changes between Ingress v1beta1
andv1
, see the Kubernetes documentation. The AWS Load Balancer Controller controller sample manifest uses the v1
spec. -
The Amazon EKS legacy Windows support controllers use the
admissionregistration.k8s.io/v1beta1
API that was removed in Kubernetes1.22
. If you're running Windows workloads, you must remove legacy Windows support and enable Windows support before upgrading to Amazon EKS version1.22
. -
The CertificateSigningRequest (CSR)
API version certificates.k8s.io/v1beta1
was removed in Kubernetes version1.22
. You must migrate manifests and API clients to use thecertificates.k8s.io/v1
CSR API. This API has been available since version1.19
. For instructions on how to use CSR in Amazon EKS, see Certificate signing. -
The
CustomResourceDefinition
API versionapiextensions.k8s.io/v1beta1
was removed in Kubernetes1.22
. Make sure that all custom resource definitions in your cluster are updated tov1
. API versionv1
custom resource definitions are required to have Open APIv3
schema validation defined. For more information, see the Kubernetes documentation. -
If you're using App Mesh, you must upgrade to at least App Mesh controller
v1.4.3
or later before you upgrade to Amazon EKS version1.22
. Older versions of the App Mesh controller usev1beta1
CustomResourceDefinition
API version and aren't compatible with Kubernetes version1.22
and later. -
Amazon EKS version
1.22
enables theEndpointSliceTerminatingCondition
feature by default, which includes pods in terminating state withinEndpointSlices
. If you setenableEndpointSlices
toTrue
(disabled by default) in the AWS Load Balancer Controller, you must upgrade to at least AWS Load Balancer Controller version2.4.1+
before upgrading to Amazon EKS version1.22
. -
Starting with Amazon EKS version
1.22
,kube-proxy
is configured by default to expose Prometheus metrics outside the pod. This behavior change addresses the request made in containers roadmap issue #657. -
The initial launch of Amazon EKS version
1.22
usesetcd
version3.4
as a backend, and is not affected by the possibility of data corruptionpresent in etcd
version3.5
. -
Starting with Amazon EKS
1.22
, Amazon EKS is decoupling AWS cloud specific control logic from core control plane code to the out-of-treeAWS Kubernetes Cloud Controller Manager . This is in line with the upstream Kubernetes recommendation. By decoupling the interoperability logic between Kubernetes and the underlying cloud infrastructure, the cloud-controller-manager
component enables cloud providers to release features at a different pace compared to the main Kubernetes project. This change is transparent and requires no action. However, a new log stream namedcloud-controller-manager
now appears under theControllerManager
log type when enabled. For more information, see Amazon EKS control plane logging. -
Starting with Amazon EKS
1.22
, Amazon EKS is changing the default AWS Security Token Service endpoint used by IAM roles for service accounts (IRSA) to be the regional endpoint instead of the global endpoint to reduce latency and improve reliability. You can optionally configure IRSA to use the global endpoint in Configuring the AWS Security Token Service endpoint for a service account.
The following Kubernetes features are now supported in Kubernetes 1.22
Amazon EKS
clusters:
-
Server-side Apply graduates to GA
- Server-side Apply helps users and controllers manage their resources through declarative configurations. It allows them to create or modify objects declaratively by sending their fully specified intent. After being in beta for a couple releases, Server-side Apply is now generally available. -
Warning mechanism for use of unsupported APIs
- Use of unsupported APIs produces warnings visible to API consumers, and metrics visible to cluster administrators.
For the complete Kubernetes 1.22
changelog, see https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/master/CHANGELOG/CHANGELOG-1.22.md#changelog-since-v1210
Kubernetes 1.21
Kubernetes 1.21
is now available in Amazon EKS. For more information about Kubernetes
1.21
, see the official release announcement
BoundServiceAccountTokenVolume
1.21
. This feature improves
security of service account tokens by allowing workloads running on Kubernetes to request
JSON web tokens that are audience, time, and key bound. Service account tokens now
have an expiration of one hour. In previous Kubernetes versions, they didn't have an
expiration. This means that clients that rely on these tokens must refresh the
tokens within an hour. The following Kubernetes
client SDKs
Go version
0.15.7
and laterPython version
12.0.0
and laterJava version
9.0.0
and laterJavaScript version
0.10.3
and laterRuby
master
branchHaskell version
0.3.0.0
C# version
7.0.5
and later
If your workload is using an older client version, then you must update it. To
enable a smooth migration of clients to the newer time-bound service account tokens,
Kubernetes version 1.21
adds an extended expiry period to the service
account token over the default one hour. For Amazon EKS clusters, the extended expiry
period is 90 days. Your Amazon EKS cluster's Kubernetes API server rejects requests with
tokens older than 90 days. We recommend that you check your applications and their
dependencies. Make sure that the Kubernetes client SDKs are the same or later than
the versions listed previously. For instructions about how to identify
pods that are using stale tokens, see Kubernetes service accounts.
-
Dual-stack networking
support ( IPv4
andIPv6
addresses) on pods, services, and nodes reached beta status. However, Amazon EKS and the Amazon VPC CNI plugin for Kubernetes don't currently support dual stack networking. -
The Amazon EKS Optimized Amazon Linux 2 AMI now contains a bootstrap flag to enable the
containerd
runtime as a Docker alternative. This flag allows preparation for the removal of Docker as a supported runtimein the next Kubernetes release. For more information, see Enable the containerd runtime bootstrap flag. This can be tracked through the container roadmap on Github . -
Managed node groups support for Cluster Autoscaler priority expander.
Newly created managed node groups on Amazon EKS version
1.21
clusters use the following format for the underlying Auto Scaling group name:eks-
managed-node-group-name
-uuid
This enables using the priority expander
feature of Cluster Autoscaler to scale node groups based on user defined priorities. A common use case is to prefer scaling spot node groups over on-demand groups. This behavior change solves the containers roadmap issue #1304 .
The following Kubernetes features are now supported in Amazon EKS 1.21
clusters:
-
CronJobs
(previously ScheduledJobs) have now graduated to stable status. With this change, users perform regularly scheduled actions such as backups and report generation. -
Immutable Secrets and ConfigMaps
have now graduated to stable status. A new, immutable field was added to these objects to reject changes. This rejection protects the cluster from updates that can unintentionally break the applications. Because these resources are immutable, kubelet
doesn't watch or poll for changes. This reduceskube-apiserver
load and improving scalability and performance. -
Graceful Node Shutdown
has now graduated to beta status. With this update, the kubelet
is aware of node shutdown and can gracefully terminate that node's pods. Before this update, when a node shutdown, its pods didn't follow the expected termination lifecycle. This caused workload problems. Now, thekubelet
can detect imminent system shutdown throughsystemd
, and inform running pods so they terminate gracefully. -
Pods with multiple containers can now use the
kubectl.kubernetes.io/default-container
annotation to have a container preselected forkubectl
commands. -
PodSecurityPolicy
is being phased out.PodSecurityPolicy
will still be functional for several more releases according to Kubernetes deprecation guidelines. For more information, see PodSecurityPolicy Deprecation: Past, Present, and Futureand the AWS blog .
For the complete Kubernetes 1.21
changelog, see https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/master/CHANGELOG/CHANGELOG-1.21.md
Kubernetes 1.20
For more information about Kubernetes 1.20
, see the official release announcement
-
1.20
brings new default roles and users. You can find more information in Default Amazon EKS created Kubernetes roles and users. Ensure that you are using a supported cert-manager version.
The following Kubernetes features are now supported in Kubernetes 1.20
Amazon EKS
clusters:
-
API Priority and Fairness
has reached beta status and is enabled by default. This allows kube-apiserver
to categorize incoming requests by priority levels. -
RuntimeClass
has reached stable status. The RuntimeClass
resource provides a mechanism for supporting multiple runtimes in a cluster and surfaces information about that container runtime to the control plane. -
Process ID Limits
has now graduated to general availability. -
kubectl debug
has reached beta status. kubectl debug
supports common debugging workflows directly fromkubectl
. -
The Docker container runtime has been phased out. The Kubernetes community has written a blog post
about this in detail with a dedicated FAQ page . Docker-produced images can continue to be used and will work as they always have. You can safely ignore the dockershim
deprecation warning message printed inkubelet
startup logs. Amazon EKS will eventually move tocontainerd
as the runtime for the Amazon EKS optimized Amazon Linux 2 AMI. You can follow the containers roadmap issuefor more details. -
Pod Hostname as FQDN has graduated to beta status. This feature allows setting a pod's hostname to its Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN). This way, you can set the hostname field of the kernel to the FQDN of a pod.
-
The client-go credential plugins can now be passed in the current cluster information via the
KUBERNETES_EXEC_INFO
environment variable. This enhancement allows Go clients to authenticate using external credential providers, such as a key management system (KMS).
For the complete Kubernetes 1.20
changelog, see https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/master/CHANGELOG/CHANGELOG-1.20.md
Kubernetes 1.19
For more information about Kubernetes 1.19
, see the official release announcement
-
Starting with
1.19
, Amazon EKS no longer adds thekubernetes.io/cluster/
tag to subnets passed in when clusters are created. This subnet tag is only required if you want to influence where the Kubernetes service controller or AWS Load Balancer Controller places Elastic Load Balancers. For more information about the requirements of subnets passed to Amazon EKS during cluster creation, see updates to Amazon EKS VPC and subnet requirements and considerations.my-cluster
-
Subnet tags aren't modified on existing clusters updated to
1.19
. -
The AWS Load Balancer Controller version
2.1.1
and earlier required the
subnet tag. In versionmy-cluster
2.1.2
and later, you can specify the tag to refine subnet discovery, but it's not required. For more information about the AWS Load Balancer Controller, see Installing the AWS Load Balancer Controller add-on. For more information about subnet tagging when using a load balancer, see Application load balancing on Amazon EKS and Network load balancing on Amazon EKS.
-
-
You're no longer required to provide a security context for non-root containers that must access the web identity token file for use with IAM roles for service accounts. For more information, see IAM roles for service accounts andproposal for file permission handling in projected service account volume
on GitHub. -
The pod identity webhook has been updated to address the missing startup probes
GitHub issue. The webhook also now supports an annotation to control token expiration. For more information, see the GitHub pull request . -
CoreDNS version
1.8.0
is the recommended version for Amazon EKS1.19
clusters. This version is installed by default in new Amazon EKS1.19
clusters. For more information, see Updating the CoreDNS self-managed add-on. -
Amazon EKS optimized Amazon Linux 2 AMIs include the Linux kernel version
5.4
for Kubernetes version1.19
. For more information, see Changelogon GitHub. -
The
CertificateSigningRequest API
has been promoted to stablecertificates.k8s.io/v1
with the following changes:-
spec.signerName
is now required. You can't create requests forkubernetes.io/legacy-unknown
with thecertificates.k8s.io/v1
API. -
You can continue to create CSRs with the
kubernetes.io/legacy-unknown
signer name with thecertificates.k8s.io/v1beta1
API. -
You can continue to request that a CSR to is signed for a non-node server cert, webhooks (for example, with the
certificates.k8s.io/v1beta1
API). These CSRs aren't auto-approved. -
To approve certificates, a privileged user requires
kubectl
1.18.8
or later.
For more information about the certificate
v1
API, see Certificate Signing Requestsin the Kubernetes documentation. -
The following Amazon EKS Kubernetes resources are critical for the Kubernetes control plane to work. We recommend that you don't delete or edit them.
Permission | Kind | Namespace | Reason |
---|---|---|---|
eks:certificate-controller |
Rolebinding |
kube-system |
Impacts signer and approver functionality in the control plane. |
eks:certificate-controller |
Role |
kube-system |
Impacts signer and approver functionality in the control plane. |
eks:certificate-controller |
ClusterRolebinding |
All | Impacts kubelet 's ability to request server
certificates, which affects certain cluster functionality like
kubectl exec and kubectl logs . |
The following Kubernetes features are now supported in Kubernetes 1.19
Amazon EKS
clusters:
-
The
ExtendedResourceToleration
admission controller is enabled. This admission controller automatically adds tolerations for taints to pods requesting extended resources, such as GPUs. This way, you don't have to manually add the tolerations. For more information, see ExtendedResourceTolerationin the Kubernetes documentation. -
Elastic Load Balancers (CLB and NLB) provisioned by the in-tree Kubernetes service controller support filtering the nodes included as instance targets. This can help prevent reaching target group limits in large clusters. For more information, see the related GitHub issue
and the service.beta.kubernetes.io/aws-load-balancer-target-node-labels
annotation under Other ELB annotationsin the Kubernetes documentation. -
Pod Topology Spread has reached stable status. You can use topology spread constraints to control how pods are spread across your cluster among failure-domains such as AWS Regions, zones, nodes, and other user-defined topology domains. This can help to achieve high availability, as well as efficient resource utilization. For more information, see Pod Topology Spread Constraints
in the Kubernetes documentation. -
The Ingress API has reached general availability. For more information, see Ingress
in the Kubernetes documentation. -
EndpointSlices
are enabled by default.EndpointSlices
is a new API that provides a more scalable and extensible alternative to the Endpoints API for tracking IP addresses, ports, readiness, and topology information for Pods backing a Service. For more information, see Scaling Kubernetes Networking With EndpointSlicesin the Kubernetes blog. -
Secret and ConfigMap volumes can now be marked as immutable. This significantly reduces load on the API server if there are many Secret and ConfigMap volumes in the cluster. For more information, see ConfigMap
and Secret in the Kubernetes documentation.
For the complete Kubernetes 1.19
changelog, see https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/master/CHANGELOG/CHANGELOG-1.19.md
Amazon EKS Kubernetes release calendar
Dates with only a month and a year are approximate and are updated with an exact date when it's known.
Kubernetes version | Upstream release | Amazon EKS release | Amazon EKS end of support |
---|---|---|---|
1.25 |
August 23, 2022 | March 2023 | May 2024 |
1.24 |
May 3, 2022 | November 15, 2022 | January 2024 |
1.23 |
December 7, 2021 | August 11, 2022 | October 2023 |
1.22 |
August 4, 2021 | April 4, 2022 | May 2023 |
1.21 |
April 8, 2021 | July 19, 2021 | February 15, 2023 |
1.20 |
December 8, 2020 | May 18, 2021 | November 1, 2022 |
1.19 |
August 26, 2020 | February 16, 2021 | August 1, 2022 |
Amazon EKS version support and FAQ
In line with the Kubernetes community support for Kubernetes versions, Amazon EKS is committed to supporting at least four production-ready versions of Kubernetes at any given time. We will announce the end of support date of a given Kubernetes minor version at least 60 days before the end of support date. Because of the Amazon EKS qualification and release process for new Kubernetes versions, the end of support date of a Kubernetes version on Amazon EKS will be on or after the date that the Kubernetes project stops supporting the version upstream.
Frequently asked questions
Q: How long is a Kubernetes version supported by Amazon EKS?
A: A Kubernetes version is supported for 14 months after first being available on Amazon EKS. This is true even if upstream Kubernetes no longer support a version that's available on Amazon EKS. We backport security patches that are applicable to the Kubernetes versions that are supported on Amazon EKS.
Q: Am I notified when support is ending for a Kubernetes version on Amazon EKS?
A: Yes, if any clusters in your account are running the version nearing the end of support, Amazon EKS sends out a notice through the AWS Health Dashboard approximately 12 months after the Kubernetes version was released on Amazon EKS. The notice includes the end of support date. This is at least 60 days from the date of the notice.
Q: What happens on the end of support date?
A: On the end of support date, you can no longer create new Amazon EKS clusters with the unsupported version. Existing control planes are automatically updated by Amazon EKS to the earliest supported version through a gradual deployment process after the end of support date. After the automatic control plane update, make sure to manually update cluster add-ons and Amazon EC2 nodes. For more information, see Update the Kubernetes version for your Amazon EKS cluster .
Q: When exactly is my control plane automatically updated after the end of support date?
A: Amazon EKS can't provide specific time frames. Automatic updates can happen at any time after the end of support date. You won't receive any notification before the update. We recommend that you proactively update your control plane without relying on the Amazon EKS automatic update process. For more information, see Updating an Amazon EKS cluster Kubernetes version.
Q: Can I leave my control plane on a Kubernetes version indefinitely?
A: No, cloud security at AWS is the highest priority. Past a certain point (usually one year), the Kubernetes community stops releasing common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE) patches and discourages CVE submission for unsupported versions. This means that vulnerabilities specific to an older version of Kubernetes might not even be reported. This leaves clusters exposed with no notice and no remediation options in the event of a vulnerability. Given this, Amazon EKS doesn't allow control planes to stay on a version that reached end of support.
Q: Which Kubernetes features are supported by Amazon EKS?
A: Amazon EKS supports all general availability features of the Kubernetes API. It also supports all beta features, which are enabled by default. Alpha features aren't supported.
Q: Are Amazon EKS managed node groups automatically updated along with the cluster control plane version?
A: No, a managed node group creates Amazon EC2 instances in your account. These instances aren't automatically upgraded when you or Amazon EKS update your control plane. Assume that Amazon EKS automatically updates your control plane. The Kubernetes version that's on your managed node group might be more than one version earlier than your control plane. Then, assume that a managed node group contains instances that are running a version of Kubernetes that's more than one version earlier than the control plane. The node group has a health issue in the Node groups section of the Compute tab of your cluster in the console. Last, if a node group has an available version update, Update now appears next to the node group in the console. For more information, see Updating a managed node group. We recommend maintaining the same Kubernetes version on your control plane and nodes.
Q: Are self-managed node groups automatically updated along with the cluster control plane version?
A: No, a self-managed node group includes Amazon EC2 instances in your account.
These instances aren't automatically upgraded when you or Amazon EKS update the
control plane version on your behalf. A self-managed node group doesn't have any
indication in the console that it needs updating. You can view the
kubelet
version installed on a node by selecting the node in
the Nodes list on the Overview tab of
your cluster to determine which nodes need updating. You must manually update
the nodes. For more information, see Self-managed node updates.
The Kubernetes project tests compatibility between the control plane and nodes for up
to two minor versions. For example, 1.22
nodes continue to operate
when orchestrated by a 1.24
control plane. However, running a
cluster with nodes that are persistently two minor versions behind the control plane
isn't recommended. For more information, see Kubernetes version and
version skew support policy
Q: Are pods running on Fargate automatically upgraded with an automatic cluster control plane version upgrade?
Yes, Fargate pods run on infrastructure in AWS owned
accounts on the Amazon EKS side of the shared responsibility
model. Amazon EKS uses the Kubernetes eviction API to attempt to gracefully
drain pods that are running on Fargate. For more information,
see The Eviction APIdelete
pod
command. We strongly recommend running
Fargate pods as part of a replication controller such as a
Kubernetes deployment. This is so that a pod is automatically
rescheduled after deletion. For more information, see Deploymentskubelet
version
that's the same version as your updated cluster control plane version.
If you update the control plane, you must still update the Fargate nodes
yourself. To update Fargate nodes, delete the Fargate pod
represented by the node and redeploy the pod. The new
pod is deployed with a kubelet
version that's the same
version as your cluster.