What's Changed

• Automated cherry pick of #17945: Create iproute2 symlink for kuberouter on older distros by @rifelpet in #17946
• Automated cherry pick of #17956: versionbump: go 1.25.7 by @hakman in #17957
• Automated cherry pick of #17861: Feature: pull user defined images for warm pool instances by @hakman in #17959
• Automated cherry pick of #17980: chore: Add asset hashes for February 2026 releases by @hakman in #17981
• Automated cherry pick of #17966: kube-router: bump version v2.5.0 -> 2.7.1 by @hakman in #17979
• Automated cherry pick of #17976: drop cdn.dl.k8s.io as a mirror
  #17987: drop storage.googleapis.com/k8s-artifacts-cni as a mirror by @hakman in #17988
• Automated cherry pick of #18021: chore: Add hashes for additional February releases by @hakman in #18022
• Automated cherry pick of #18026: chore: Bump etcd-manager to v3.0.20260227 by @hakman in #18027
• Automated cherry pick of #18043: Fix node bootstrap challenge response hashing by @rifelpet in #18044
• Automated cherry pick of #18058: chore: Bump Go to v1.25.8 by @hakman in #18059
• Release 1.35.0 by @hakman in #18090

Full Changelog: v1.35.0-beta.1...v1.35.0

What's Changed

• Automated cherry pick of #17755: Include maxParallelImagePulls field in Kubelet config by @hakman in #17772
• Automated cherry pick of #17773: aws: Tag Launch Template network interfaces by @hakman in #17774
• Automated cherry pick of #17776: aws: Enable CloudWatch metrics for the warm pool of an ASG by @recollir in #17778
• Automated cherry pick of #17783: chore(upup): bump aws-cni to 1.20.5 by @moshevayner in #17786
• Automated cherry pick of #17792: aws: Disable the kubelet systemd unit during warm pool warming by @dezmodue in #17801
• Automated cherry pick of #17800: aws: Allow warm pool with mixed instances policy by @kimxogus in #17803
• gcp: cherrypick ccm upgrade to release 1.34 by @upodroid in #17794
• Automated cherry pick of #17812: etcd-manager: Update etcd versions by @hakman in #17813
• Automated cherry pick of #17712: gce: bump GCE PD CSI Driver by @upodroid in #17835
• Automated cherry pick of #17899: Update Cilium to v1.18.6 by @hakman in #17900
• Automated cherry pick of #17689: Migrate Kindnet to Kubernetes prod registry by @rifelpet in #17903
• Automated cherry pick of #17854: Add iam:ListInstanceProfiles permission to Karpenter by @hakman in #17905
• Cherry-pick #17879: bump golang to 1.25.6 by @justinsb in #17906
• deps: bump containerd to v1.7.29 to address vulnerabilities by @justinsb in #17907
• Automated cherry pick of #17917: hetzner: Update default server type to cx23 by @hakman in #17918
• Automated cherry pick of #17867: Use a different systemd-networkd configuration for AL2023
  #17882: Disable cloud-init network hotplug on Ubuntu 24.04 for Cilium and Ama…
  #17933: Set MACAddressPolicy=none for AWS VPC CNI on AL2023 by @rifelpet in #17935
• Automated cherry pick of #17945: Create iproute2 symlink for kuberouter on older distros by @rifelpet in #17947
• Automated cherry pick of #17956: versionbump: go 1.25.7 by @hakman in #17958
• Automated cherry pick of #17861: Feature: pull user defined images for warm pool instances by @hakman in #17960
• chore: Back-port pulling CNI plugins from GitHub by @hakman in #17970
• Automated cherry pick of #17980: chore: Add asset hashes for February 2026 releases by @hakman in #17982
• Automated cherry pick of #17976: drop cdn.dl.k8s.io as a mirror
  #17987: drop storage.googleapis.com/k8s-artifacts-cni as a mirror by @hakman in #17989
• Automated cherry pick of #18021: chore: Add hashes for additional February releases by @hakman in #18023
• Automated cherry pick of #18026: chore: Bump etcd-manager to v3.0.20260227 by @hakman in #18028
• Automated cherry pick of #18043: Fix node bootstrap challenge response hashing by @rifelpet in #18045
• Automated cherry pick of #18058: chore: Bump Go to v1.25.8 by @hakman in #18060
• Release 1.34.2 by @hakman in #18091

Full Changelog: v1.34.1...v1.34.2

What's Changed

• Automated cherry pick of #17722: scaleway: Fix failing terraform test by @hakman in #17724
• Automated cherry pick of #17559: Bump ko-build by @hakman in #17729
• Update Go to 1.24.7 and some deps by @hakman in #17730
• Automated cherry pick of #17640: Update cluster-autoscaler to v1.34.0 releases
  #17725: Update cluster-autoscaler to v1.34.1 by @hakman in #17727
• Automated cherry pick of #17776: aws: Enable CloudWatch metrics for the warm pool of an ASG by @recollir in #17779
• Automated cherry pick of #17792: aws: Disable the kubelet systemd unit during warm pool warming by @dezmodue in #17802
• Automated cherry pick of #17793: gcp: Update ccm to fix broken arm64 jobs by @upodroid in #17814
• Automated cherry pick of #17712: gce: bump GCE PD CSI Driver by @upodroid in #17836
• Automated cherry pick of #17144: Normalize the hardcoded images used for warmpool pre-pulling
  #17861: Feature: pull user defined images for warm pool instances by @hakman in #17977
• chore: Back-port pulling CNI plugins from GitHub by @hakman in #17971
• Automated cherry pick of #17980: chore: Add asset hashes for February 2026 releases by @hakman in #17983
• Automated cherry pick of #17976: drop cdn.dl.k8s.io as a mirror
  #17987: drop storage.googleapis.com/k8s-artifacts-cni as a mirror by @hakman in #17990
• Automated cherry pick of #17956: versionbump: go 1.25.7 by @hakman in #17995
• Automated cherry pick of #18021: chore: Add hashes for additional February releases by @hakman in #18024
• Automated cherry pick of #18043: Fix node bootstrap challenge response hashing by @rifelpet in #18046
• Automated cherry pick of #18058: chore: Bump Go to v1.25.8 by @hakman in #18061
• Release 1.33.2 by @hakman in #18092

Full Changelog: v1.33.1...v1.33.2

What's Changed

• Automated cherry pick of #17559: Bump ko-build by @upodroid in #17736
• Automated cherry pick of #17709: tests: free up disk space on github actions runner by @hakman in #17805
• Automated cherry pick of #17157: Use ephemeral S3 buckets for E2E tests by @hakman in #17806
• Automated cherry pick of #17792: aws: Disable the kubelet systemd unit during warm pool warming by @dezmodue in #17807
• Automated cherry pick of #17722: scaleway: Fix failing terraform test by @hakman in #17978
• chore: Back-port pulling CNI plugins from GitHub by @hakman in #17973
• Automated cherry pick of #17980: chore: Add asset hashes for February 2026 releases by @hakman in #17984
• Automated cherry pick of #17976: drop cdn.dl.k8s.io as a mirror
  #17987: drop storage.googleapis.com/k8s-artifacts-cni as a mirror by @hakman in #17991
• Automated cherry pick of #17956: versionbump: go 1.25.7 by @hakman in #17996
• Automated cherry pick of #18021: chore: Add hashes for additional February releases by @hakman in #18025
• Automated cherry pick of #18043: Fix node bootstrap challenge response hashing by @rifelpet in #18047
• Automated cherry pick of #18058: chore: Bump Go to v1.25.8 by @hakman in #18062
• Release 1.32.3 by @hakman in #18093
• Release 1.32.4 by @hakman in #18094

Full Changelog: v1.32.2...v1.32.4

Significant changes

• bridge-utils, conntrack, pigz, libltdl are no longer installed by default.

• OpenStack: the InsecureSkipVerify field from the Cluster object is now propagated to all components

Deprecations

• Support for Kubernetes version 1.29 is removed in kOps 1.35.

• Support for Kubernetes version 1.30 is deprecated and will be removed in kOps 1.36.

• Support for Amazon Linux 2 is deprecated and will be removed in kOps 1.36

What's Changed

• recognise rhel 10 and its variants + fedora + centos stream by @upodroid in #17785
• chore(channels): update alpha k8s and ubuntu ami versions by @moshevayner in #17787
• chore(upup): bump metrics-server to 0.8.0 by @moshevayner in #17788
• iptables is deprecated and broken on rhel10+ so use nftables by default by @upodroid in #17789
• gcp: Update ccm to fix broken arm64 jobs by @upodroid in #17793
• build(deps): bump actions/checkout from 6.0.0 to 6.0.1 by @dependabot[bot] in #17795
• chore(upup): bump aws-cni to 1.20.5 by @moshevayner in #17783
• chore(channels): Promote Alpha to Stable by @moshevayner in #17796
• aws: Allow warm pool with mixed instances policy by @kimxogus in #17800
• aws: Disable the kubelet systemd unit during warm pool warming by @dezmodue in #17792
• Update cert-manager to v1.19.2 by @hakman in #17808
• build(deps): bump actions/upload-artifact from 5 to 6 by @dependabot[bot] in #17811
• etcd-manager: Update etcd versions by @hakman in #17812
• azure: Fix the setting of creationTimestamp label for tests by @hakman in #17815
• codebot: update-dependencies by @ameukam in #17816
• Update coredns to v1.13.2 by @hakman in #17817
• enable deploying a released version of kops by @upodroid in #17819
• chore(channels): update alpha k8s and ubuntu ami versions by @moshevayner in #17822
• chore(networking): bump aws-cni to 1.21.0 by @moshevayner in #17823
• Remove spurious indent by @rramkumar1 in #17824
• kubetest2: Fix cloud-labels for non-Azure providers by @hakman in #17826
• kubetest2-kops: use ephemeral discovery store for AWS by @ameukam in #17809
• Bump and introduce new assets versions by @ameukam in #17827
• gce: Support cloudLabels for InstanceGroup by @rramkumar1 in #17821
• test: Update test skipping for K8s 1.35 by @hakman in #17829
• Bump containerd to 2.1.6 by @ameukam in #17828
• Update Calico to v3.31.2 by @hakman in #17831
• azure: Use VXLAN encapsulation for pod traffic with Calico by @hakman in #17832
• chore(networking): bump aws-cni to 1.21.1 by @moshevayner in #17834
• azure: Dump VM logs with toolbox dump by @upodroid in #17820
• chore(channels): promote alpha to stable (k8s and aws ubuntu AMI versions) by @moshevayner in #17837
• Update Calico to v3.31.3 by @hakman in #17838
• channels: Add Kubernetes 1.35.0 support by @hakman in #17839
• gcp: bump ccm to v35 by @upodroid in #17841
• test: Disable IRSA for AWS scale jobs by default by @hakman in #17842
• Move url util to where it's solely used by @rramkumar1 in #17848
• Delete dead code by @rramkumar1 in #17846
• Simple discovery server by @justinsb in #17818
• Use dns=none for apiserver-nodes test by @rifelpet in #17851
• Use public dns for apiserver-nodes e2e by @rifelpet in #17852
• Add iam:ListInstanceProfiles permission to Karpenter by @rifelpet in #17854
• Continue to skip failing e2e tests in k8s CI versions by @rifelpet in #17859
• Remove unused pointer helper functions by @rramkumar1 in #17857
• Enable RBAC in E2E templates by @rifelpet in #17860
• Add unit test for jsonutils.SortSlice by @rramkumar1 in #17850
• Add test for taints util by @rramkumar1 in #17855
• Support API field mapping for bastion.loadBalancer.type by @rramkumar1 in #17858
• Deprecate version util in pkg/k8sversion by @rramkumar1 in #17856
• Update metrics-server container port by @rifelpet in #17862
• Fix upgrades to CI k8s versions by @rifelpet in #17864
• Use a different systemd-networkd configuration for AL2023 by @rifelpet in #17867
• Continue skipping hostPort protocol test with Cilium by @rifelpet in #17865
• Skip SupplementalGroupsPolicy in deb11 jobs by @rifelpet in #17866
• kube-scheduler: Wait for the auth conf from the API server by @hakman in #17868
• build(deps): bump actions/setup-go from 6.1.0 to 6.2.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #17869
• Allow release of the discovery service by @ameukam in #17863
• Removed dead code in upup/pkg/fi/timestamp.go by @rramkumar1 in #17871
• Update openstack csi images by @jauru in #17872
• fix: add kops details to Hetzner Cloud client user agent by @lukasmetzner in #17875
• Pull cluster name from context in kops version --server by @rramkumar1 in #17870
• Delete more dead code by @rramkumar1 in #17876
• Bump golang to 1.25.6 by @ameukam in #17879
• build(deps): bump actions/checkout from 6.0.1 to 6.0.2 by @dependabot[bot] in #17883
• metal: support dns=none, use API server IP for kops-controller by @justinsb in #17884
• truncate very long sqs queue names by @upodroid in #17877
• fix truncate long sqs by @upodroid in #17885
• fix aws scalability tests by @upodroid in #17880
• fix podidentitywebhook test by @upodroid in #17887
• Add EtcdEventsHTTP feature flag for HTTP on events etcd by @dims in #17891
• Disable cloud-init network hotplug on Ubuntu 24.04 for Cilium and Ama… by @yilmaz-burak in #17882
• Consolidate env var utils by @rramkumar1 in #17889
• Enable EtcdEventsHTTP in scalability tests by @dims in #17892
• Add tip to use gotestfail when doing local development by @rramkumar1 in #17893
• Add Scenario for AI conformance by @ameukam in #17886
• Remove year from copyright header boilerplate by @hakman in #17895
• fix broken metrics server test by @upodroid in #17896
• Update Cilium to v1.18.6 by @hakman in #17899
• gce: Require zones on instancegroup creation by @Camila-B in #17849
• Add well-known hashes for latest CNI by @justinsb in #17901
• Skip kube-proxy nfacct metric test on rhel + rocky distros by @rifelpet in #17902
• versionbump tools/metal: bump go version to 1.25.6 by @justinsb in #17912
• versionbump: bump dependencies in tests/e2e/go.mod by @justinsb in #17909
• chore: fix govet issue in tester.go by @justinsb in #17913
• traceserver tool: fix compilation error by @justinsb in #17910
• Use go get -tool instead of hack/tools.go by @justinsb in #17911
• hetzner: Update Getting Started docs by @hakman in #17916
• openstack: pass through InsecureSkipVerify into openstack components by @justinsb in #17908
• hetzner: Update default server type to cx23 by @hakman in https://github.com/k...

What's Changed

• Update etcd to v3.5.23 for K8s <1.34 by @hakman in #17639
• Stop rendering large CAPI manifests by @justinsb in #17650
• update openstack csi images by @kraashen in #17652
• Add toolbox command to generate ClusterAPI objects by @justinsb in #17655
• tests: allow env vars to be exported from kubetest2-kops by @justinsb in #17654
• chore: bump kOps version in tests by @justinsb in #17659
• build(deps): bump actions/dependency-review-action from 4.8.0 to 4.8.1 by @dependabot[bot] in #17660
• aws: Update Karpenter to v1.8.1 by @hakman in #17661
• chore: remove old (unused) bazel libraries by @justinsb in #17665
• aws: Add the option to set Karpenter feature gates by @hakman in #17663
• Remove unused kubelet flag --pod-infra-container-image by @hakman in #17657
• gce: run scale tests on kops by @upodroid in #17651
• Initial support for Ubuntu 25.10 (Questing Quokka) by @hakman in #17664
• Drop the libltdl package by @hakman in #17667
• Drop the pigz package by @hakman in #17668
• aws: Bypass the graceful OS shutdown process on cluster deletion by @hakman in #17670
• aws: Enforce the graceful OS shutdown for Xen instances by @hakman in #17675
• test: Enforce max node to dump for unregistered nodes by @hakman in #17672
• test: Remove non-nitro instance types from the AWS scale test by @hakman in #17674
• Allow setting map[string][]string from the command line by @hakman in #17679
• allow specific GCE IGs to have public IP addresses by @upodroid in #17680
• Prevent failing DNS requests on shutdown of CoreDNS pods by @jan-kantert in #17678
• Support tags for kubetest-kops by @ameukam in #17682
• Switch Route53 domain for E2E tests by @ameukam in #17684
• Migrate Kindnet to Kubernetes prod registry by @ameukam in #17689
• fix notfound backendservice/healthchekc by @upodroid in #17692
• chore: reduce logspam when matching channels by @justinsb in #17693
• fix: use kopsbase.Version instead of kopsbase.KOPS_RELEASE_VERSION by @justinsb in #17658
• calico: Don't install Wireguard if disabled by @hakman in #17687
• Drop bridge-utils and conntrack packages by @hakman in #17694
• Release Notes for kOps 1.34 by @hakman in #17696
• Update kindnet repository links in documentation by @aojea in #17698
• bump kops-controller qps limits by @upodroid in #17701
• Update the node package list only before installing packages by @hakman in #17690
• aws: Fix missing permissions for CCM and LBC by @hakman in #17705
• Improve the node package list updates by @hakman in #17704
• Skip package updates at boot time by @hakman in #17708
• tests: free up disk space on github actions runner by @justinsb in #17709
• More support for cluster-api by @justinsb in #17636
• build(deps): bump actions/upload-artifact from 4 to 5 by @dependabot[bot] in #17711
• capi: refactor to use shared nodeup builder by @justinsb in #17703
• add support for specifying iops and thoroughput when using hyperdisks by @upodroid in #17685
• start running the access tokens and huge services test by @upodroid in #17671
• Pull CNI plugins from Github by @ameukam in #17716
• Bump cni version by @ameukam in #17676
• clean up the skip regex files by @upodroid in #17715
• remove bastion flag from gce scale jobs by @upodroid in #17719
• Update etcd to v3.5.24 for K8s <1.34 by @hakman in #17720
• scaleway: Fix failing terraform test by @hakman in #17722
• Update cluster-autoscaler to v1.34.1 by @hakman in #17725
• Update Go to 1.25.3 and deps by @hakman in #17728
• azure: Avoid spurious changes in NetworkSecurityGroup by @hakman in #17734
• azure: Allow independent VMs to join the cluster by @hakman in #17710
• update kops scalability run-test.sh to allow configuring qps and burst by @alaypatel07 in #17742
• test: Skip Pod Level Resources tests by @hakman in #17745
• Skip Pod InPlace Resize Container tests by @hakman in #17747
• Update containerd to v2.1.5 by @hakman in #17743
• Remove HugeService Test Suite to stop bleeding by @hakuna-matatah in #17750
• configure proper kops flags for kube-scheduler qps and burst configuration by @alaypatel07 in #17752
• Add snapshot permissions for ec2:CreateVolume by @rifelpet in #17757
• build(deps): bump actions/dependency-review-action from 4.8.1 to 4.8.2 by @dependabot[bot] in #17760
• Revert configure proper kops flags for kube-scheduler qps and burst configuration by @alaypatel07 in #17761
• Configure kube-scheduler QPS and Burst by @Sreeja1725 in #17763
• Include maxParallelImagePulls field in Kubelet config by @jaswdr in #17755
• Fix Netlify build failure from template syntax error and PATH issues in documentation by @Copilot in #17767
• build(deps): bump actions/setup-go from 6.0.0 to 6.1.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #17765
• build(deps): bump actions/checkout from 5.0.0 to 6.0.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #17764
• gce: bump GCE PD CSI Driver by @upodroid in #17712
• reworking toolbox dumping logic by @upodroid in #17733
• Update Go to 1.25.4 by @hakman in #17768
• test: dump kubelet config file by @hakman in #17771
• kubelet: Wait less for control-plane pods to restart by @hakman in #17510
• aws: Tag Launch Template network interfaces by @hakman in #17773
• aws: Enable CloudWatch metrics for the warm pool of an ASG by @recollir in #17776
• Update dependencies by @hakman in #17777
• Release 1.35.0-alpha.1 by @hakman in #17781

New Contributors

• @kraashen made their first contribution in #17652
• @jan-kantert made their first contribution in #17678
• @alaypatel07 made their first contribution in #17742
• @Sreeja1725 made their first contribution in #17763
• @jaswdr made their first contribution in #17755
• @Copilot made their first contribution in #17767

Full Changelog: v1.34.0-beta.1...v1.35.0-alpha.1

What's Changed

• Automated cherry pick of #17705: aws: Add missing permissions for Cloud Controller Manager by @hakman in #17706
• Automated cherry pick of #17720: Update etcd to v3.5.24 for K8s <1.34 by @hakman in #17721
• Automated cherry pick of #17722: scaleway: Fix failing terraform test by @hakman in #17723
• Automated cherry pick of #17709: tests: free up disk space on github actions runner by @hakman in #17731
• Automated cherry pick of #17725: Update cluster-autoscaler to v1.34.1 by @hakman in #17726
• Update Go to 1.25.3 and some deps by @hakman in #17732
• Automated cherry pick of #17734: azure: Avoid spurious changes in NetworkSecurityGroup by @hakman in #17735
• Automated cherry pick of #17745: Skip Pod Level Resources tests
  #17747: Skip Pod InPlace Resize Container tests by @hakman in #17748
• Automated cherry pick of #17743: Update containerd to v2.1.5 by @hakman in #17744
• Automated cherry pick of #17757: Add snapshot permissions for ec2:CreateVolume by @rifelpet in #17758
• Automated cherry pick of #17768: Update Go to 1.25.4 by @hakman in #17769
• Release 1.34.1 by @hakman in #17770

Full Changelog: v1.34.0...v1.34.1

Release notes for kOps 1.34 series

kOps 1.34.0 introduces major updates to container runtime management, enhanced cloud provider support, and significant networking improvements.

Significant changes

Container Runtime

• crictl and nerdctl are now only installed on demand (#17604)
  • Set spec.containerd.installCriCtl=true or spec.containerd.installNerdCtl=true to install
• Update containerd to v2.1.4 (#17532)
  • Better systemd integration with dbus dependency fix (#17603)

Networking

• Update Cilium to v1.18.2 (#17601)
  • Add support for cilium-etcd with dns=none (#17625)
• Update Calico to v3.30.3 (#17628)
• Update Flannel to v0.27.4 (#17641)
• AWS VPC CNI updated to v1.20.2 (#17629)
• BREAKING: Canal support removed (#17642)

AWS

• Update Karpenter to v1.8.1 (#17624)
  • Add support for feature gates configuration
  • Important: Older versions must be uninstalled before upgrading (#17567)
• Add CPU and memory resource configuration for AWS Load Balancer Controller
• Update EBS CSI driver to v1.47.0 (#17560)
• Add support for using ECR as pull-through image cache (#16593)

Azure

• Add udev disk rules (#17611)
• Fix rolling-update error (#17538)
• Use internal K8s API endpoint for cloud-node-manager (#17607)
• Remove various VMSS configuration suffixes for cleaner naming
• Use kops as the default admin user

OpenStack

• Update OpenStack CSI images

Etcd

• Update etcd to v3.6.5 for Kubernetes 1.34+ (#17637)
• Update etcd to v3.5.23 for Kubernetes <1.34
• Update etcd-manager to v3.0.20250917 (#17615)
  • Use image volumes to mount etcd images (#17539)

Other Components

• Update cluster-autoscaler to v1.34.0 (#17643)
• Update CoreDNS to v1.12.4
• Update Cloud Controller Managers for AWS, Azure, and Hetzner
• Default SSH key changed to ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub (from RSA)
• ebtables, ethtool and socat are no longer installed by default

Breaking changes

• Canal support has been removed (#17642)
  • Migrate to Calico or another supported CNI before upgrading
• Legacy addons removed from the kOps repository (#17332)
  • Only affects clusters using kOps <1.22
• Karpenter requires manual uninstallation before upgrading (#17567)
• Default SSH key changed from RSA to Ed25519
• Several packages no longer installed by default: crictl, nerdctl, ebtables, ethtool, socat

Other changes of note

• Migrate to control-plane nomenclature in documentation
• Fix IPv6 routes for Kubernetes 1.32
• Fix Azure subscription ID check
• Add nftables package support
• Use ephemeral S3 buckets for E2E tests
• Bump Golang to 1.25
• Update golangci-lint to v2

Known Issues

• Karpenter upgrade requires manual uninstallation of older versions
• Azure naming conventions have changed which may affect existing automation

Deprecations

• Support for Kubernetes version 1.28 is removed in kOps 1.34
• Support for Kubernetes version 1.29 is deprecated and will be removed in kOps 1.35

Installation and Upgrade Notes

Pre-Upgrade Checklist

1. Canal Users: Migrate to another CNI solution
2. Karpenter Users: Uninstall existing Karpenter installations
3. SSH Access: Verify Ed25519 key support
4. Tool Dependencies: Check if you need crictl, nerdctl, ebtables, ethtool, or socat

Upgrade Process

1. Review breaking changes
2. Test in non-production first
3. For Karpenter users, uninstall existing version
4. Run kops update cluster and validate before applying

This release includes contributions from the kOps community. Thank you to all contributors!

What's Changed

• etcd-manager: Use image volumes to mount etcd images by @hakman in #17539
• Recognize Debian 13 by @rifelpet in #17550
• aws: Update EBS CSI driver to v1.47.0 by @hakman in #17552
• etcd-manager: Keep the ImageVolume feature gate for K8s 1.35 by @hakman in #17553
• Bump ko-build by @ameukam in #17559
• Bump Golang to 1.25 by @ameukam in #17560
• Add AGENTS.md by @ameukam in #17561
• build(deps): bump actions/checkout from 4.2.2 to 5.0.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #17566
• Add instructions to avoid loops by @ameukam in #17569
• Golangci-lint v2 fixes by @rifelpet in #17573
• Use yum instead of dnf on Amazon Linux 2 by @ConnorJC3 in #17557
• build(deps): bump actions/dependency-review-action from 4.7.1 to 4.7.2 by @dependabot[bot] in #17576
• Bump golangci-lint to v2 by @ameukam in #17562
• Upgrade AWS Load Balancer Controller to v2.13.4 by @cloud303-pdavis in #17571
• nodeup: Simplify the template by removing split-commas by @hakman in #17577
• Install cgroupfs-mount for distros lower than Debian Trixie by @ameukam in #17581
• Remove unused const, variables and function reported by Golangci-lint by @ameukam in #17582
• containerd: Don't install crictl and nerdctl by default by @hakman in #17547
• coredns: Relax zonal topologySpreadConstraints by @hakman in #17554
• Add nftables package by @ameukam in #17583
• Update amazon-ec2-instance-selector to v3.1.1 by @hakman in #17586
• Drop ebtables, ethtool and socat by @ameukam in #17587
• Update 1.34 release notes by @ameukam in #17588
• Update Kubernetes hashes with latest releases by @hakman in #17592
• chore: Bump channels with the latest releases by @hakman in #17596
• Update release notes for kOps 1.33 by @hakman in #17597
• chore: Remove support for Kubernetes 1.28 in kOps 1.34 by @hakman in #17598
• build(deps): bump actions/dependency-review-action from 4.7.2 to 4.7.3 by @dependabot[bot] in #17599
• Use only systemd as cgroup driver by @hakman in #17600
• Golangci-lint v2 fixes: gocritic by @ameukam in #17602
• Ensure containerd starts after dbus by @ameukam in #17603
• Update Karpenter to v1.6.2 by @hakman in #17567
• build(deps): bump actions/setup-go from 5.5.0 to 6.0.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #17606
• azure: Use internal K8s API endpoint for cloud-node-manager by @hakman in #17607
• Bump coredns to 1.12.4 by @ameukam in #17609
• Bump k8s assets by @ameukam in #17610
• azure: Update getting started docs by @hakman in #17612
• azure: Add udev disk rules by @hakman in #17611
• Bump versions in netlify and mkdocs by @hakman in #17614
• nodeup: Use embed for containerd license by @hakman in #17613
• Update etcd-manager to v3.0.20250917 by @hakman in #17615
• Update etcd to v3.6.4 for K8s 1.34+ by @hakman in #17616
• Update Karpenter to v1.7.1 by @hakman in #17624
• docs: migrate to control-plane nomenclature by @apeabody in #17618
• Add support for cilium-etcd with dns=none by @hakman in #17625
• Update Cilium to v1.18.2 by @hakman in #17601
• feat: add CPU and memory resource configuration for AWS Load Balancer Controller by @ana-aguilar7 in #17608
• aws: Update VPC CNI to v1.20.2 by @hakman in #17629
• Update Calico to v3.30.3 by @hakman in #17628
• build(deps): bump actions/dependency-review-action from 4.7.3 to 4.8.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #17632
• Restore default SELinux security contexts for containerd binaries by @hakman in #17633
• Update etcd to v3.6.5 for K8s 1.34+ by @hakman in #17637
• Update cluster-autoscaler to v1.34.0 releases by @hakman in #17640
• Remove Canal support by @hakman in #17642
• Update Flannel to v0.27.4 by @hakman in #17641
• Update dependencies by @hakman in #17643
• Update CCM for AWS, Azure and Hetzner by @hakman in #17644
• Update codegen to v0.34.1 by @hakman in #17645
• Release 1.34.0-beta.1 by @hakman in #17646

New Contributors

• @ConnorJC3 made their first contribution in #17557
• @cloud303-pdavis made their first contribution in #17571
• @apeabody made their first contribution in #17618

Full Changelog: v1.34.0-alpha.1...v1.34.0-beta.1

What's Changed

• Automated cherry pick of #17550: Recognize Debian 13 by @ameukam in #17570
• Automated cherry pick of #17557: Use yum instead of dnf on Amazon Linux 2 by @hakman in #17574
• Automated cherry pick of #17554: coredns: Relax zonal topologySpreadConstraints by @hakman in #17584
• Automated cherry pick of #17581: Install cgroupfs-mount for distros lower than Debian 13 by @hakman in #17590
• Automated cherry pick of #17592: Update Kubernetes hashes with latest releases by @hakman in #17593
• Release 1.33.1 by @hakman in #17594

Full Changelog: v1.33.0...v1.33.1