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Upgrading to KKP 2.21

Upgrading to KKP 2.21 is only supported from version 2.20. Do not attempt to upgrade from versions prior to that and apply the upgrade step by step over minor versions instead (e.g. from 2.19 to 2.20 and then to 2.21). It is also strongly advised to be on the latest 2.20.x patch release before upgrading to 2.21.

This guide will walk you through upgrading Kubermatic Kubernetes Platform (KKP) to version 2.21. For the full list of changes in this release, please check out the KKP changelog for v2.21. Please read the full document before proceeding with the upgrade.

Pre-Upgrade Considerations

  • Support for Kubernetes 1.20 and Kubernetes 1.21 has been removed in KKP. User clusters on Kubernetes 1.20 need to be upgraded prior to a KKP upgrade. It is recommended to update existing user clusters to 1.22 before proceeding with the upgrade, but user clusters with 1.21 will also be automatically updated to 1.22 as part of the upgrade.
  • The expected secret name for S3 credentials has been updated to kubermatic-s3-credentials. If the s3-credentials secret was manually created instead of using the minio Helm chart, the existing s3-credentials secret should be duplicated to kubermatic-s3-credentials.
  • Check the full list of breaking changes, specifically for changes to Helm chart values shipped as part of KKP. Adjust your local values.yaml and any CRDs manually deployed for the required changes (do not apply them yet, the Helm charts will be updated during the upgrade procedure).

Upgrade Procedure

Before starting the upgrade, make sure your KKP master and seed clusters are healthy with no failing or pending Pods. If any Pod is showing problems, investigate and fix the individual problems before applying the upgrade. This includes the control plane components for user clusters, unhealthy user clusters should not be submitted to an upgrade.

Download the latest 2.21.x release archive for the correct edition (ce for Community Edition, ee for Enterprise Edition) from the release page and extract it locally on your computer. Make sure you have the values.yaml you used to deploy KKP 2.20 available and already adjusted for any 2.21 changes (also see Pre-Upgrade Considerations), as you need to pass it to the installer. The KubermaticConfiguration is no longer necessary (unless you are adjusting it), as the KKP operator will use its in-cluster representation. From within the extracted directory, run the installer:

$ ./kubermatic-installer deploy kubermatic-master --helm-values path/to/values.yaml

# example output for a successful upgrade
INFO[0000] 🚀 Initializing installer…                     edition="Enterprise Edition" version=v2.21.0
INFO[0001] 🚦 Validating the provided configuration…
WARN[0001]    Helm values: kubermaticOperator.imagePullSecret is empty, setting to spec.imagePullSecret from KubermaticConfiguration
INFO[0001] ✅ Provided configuration is valid.
INFO[0001] 🚦 Validating existing installation…
INFO[0001]    Checking seed cluster…                     seed=kubermatic
INFO[0002] ✅ Existing installation is valid.
INFO[0002] 🛫 Deploying KKP master stack…
INFO[0002]    💾 Deploying kubermatic-fast StorageClass…
INFO[0002]    ✅ StorageClass exists, nothing to do.
INFO[0002]    📦 Deploying nginx-ingress-controller…
INFO[0002]       Deploying Helm chart…
INFO[0002]       Updating release from 2.20.6 to 2.21.0…
INFO[0024]    ✅ Success.
INFO[0024]    📦 Deploying cert-manager…
INFO[0025]       Deploying Custom Resource Definitions…
INFO[0026]       Deploying Helm chart…
INFO[0027]       Updating release from 2.20.6 to 2.21.0…
INFO[0053]    ✅ Success.
INFO[0053]    📦 Deploying Dex…
INFO[0053]       Updating release from 2.20.6 to 2.21.0…
INFO[0072]    ✅ Success.
INFO[0072]    📦 Deploying Kubermatic Operator…
INFO[0072]       Deploying Custom Resource Definitions…
INFO[0078]       Migrating UserSSHKeys…
INFO[0079]       Migrating Users…
INFO[0079]       Migrating ExternalClusters…
INFO[0079]       Deploying Helm chart…
INFO[0079]       Updating release from 2.20.6 to 2.21.0…
INFO[0136]    ✅ Success.
INFO[0136]    📦 Deploying Telemetry
INFO[0136]       Updating release from 2.20.6 to 2.21.0…
INFO[0142]    ✅ Success.
INFO[0142]    📡 Determining DNS settings…
INFO[0142]       The main LoadBalancer is ready.
INFO[0142]
INFO[0142]         Service             : nginx-ingress-controller / nginx-ingress-controller
INFO[0142]         Ingress via hostname: <AWS ELB Name>.eu-central-1.elb.amazonaws.com
INFO[0142]
INFO[0142]       Please ensure your DNS settings for "<Hostname>" include the following records:
INFO[0142]
INFO[0142]          <Hostname>    IN  CNAME  <AWS ELB Name>.eu-central-1.elb.amazonaws.com.
INFO[0142]          *.<Hostname>  IN  CNAME  <AWS ELB Name>.eu-central-1.elb.amazonaws.com.
INFO[0142]
INFO[0142] 🛬 Installation completed successfully. Time for a break, maybe? ☺

Upgrading seed clusters is no longer necessary in KKP 2.21, unless you are running the minio Helm chart as distributed by KKP on them. Apart from upgrading the minio chart, no manual steps for seed clusters are required. They will be automatically upgraded by KKP components. Do note that this only applies to existing seed clusters. New seed clusters must still be first installed using the KKP installer, afterwards KKP controllers take over upgrading it.

You can follow the upgrade process by either supervising the pods on master and seed clusters (by simply checking kubectl get pods -n kubermatic frequently) or checking status information for the Seed objects. A possible command to extract the current status by seed would be:

$ kubectl get seeds -A -o jsonpath="{range .items[*]}{.metadata.name} - {.status}{'\n'}{end}"
kubermatic - {"clusters":3,"conditions":{"KubeconfigValid":{"lastHeartbeatTime":"2022-08-03T10:10:32Z","reason":"KubeconfigValid","status":"True"},"ResourcesReconciled":{"lastHeartbeatTime":"2022-08-25T09:30:52Z","lastTransitionTime":"2022-08-25T09:30:52Z","reason":"ReconcilingSuccess","status":"True"}},"phase":"Healthy","versions":{"cluster":"v1.23.6","kubermatic":"v2.21.0"}}

Seed status is a new functionality introduced in KKP 2.21, so running this command on the existing 2.20 setup will not show any status, but during the upgrade status information will start to show up. Particularly interesting for the upgrade process is if the ResourcesReconciled condition succeeded and if the versions.kubermatic field is showing the target KKP version. If this is not the case yet, the upgrade is still in flight. If the upgrade is stuck, try kubectl -n kubermatic describe seed <seed name> to see what exactly is keeping the KKP operator from updating the seed cluster.

After a seed was successfully upgraded, user clusters on that seed should start updating. Observe their control plane components in the respective cluster namespaces if you want to follow the upgrade process. This is the last step of the upgrade, after all user clusters have settled the upgrade is complete.

Post-Upgrade Considerations

  • operating-system-manager (OSM) is now enabled by default, which is reflected in the dashboard during cluster creation. For existing clusters, enableOperatingSystemManager is not updated and needs to be manually enabled. After enabling OSM, MachineDeployments require manual rotation for instances to start using OSM to bootstrap. That can be forced for example by using the “Restart Machine Deployment” button from the dashboard or updating machine annotations.
  • Since OPA Gatekeeper has been updated to 3.6.0, new Kubermatic ConstraintTemplates need a structurally correct schema in spec.crd.spec.validation.openAPIV3Schema. Old templates set the spec.crd.spec.validation.legacySchema and need to be migrated to a structurally correct schema (update the schema and set this flag to false). Check out OPA Gatekeeper documentation for more on this topic.

KubeVirt Migration

If you already have KKP 2.20 installed and a KubeVirt cluster created with it, please be aware that there is a non backward compatible spec change for MachineDeployments. It means a MachineDeployment created with KKP 2.20 and one created with KKP 2.21 will have different API, and no automatic migration will happen as KubeVirt is in Technology Preview phase.

Below is the procedure to follow to fully migrate for a KubeVirt cluster:

  1. Your existing KKP 2.20 tenant cluster with its existing worker nodes will continue to work. The restriction is that you will not be able to update the old MachineDeployment objects. Additionally, reconciliation of those objects will not work properly, and you may see errors.
  2. Create new MachineDeployments.
  3. Once the new worker nodes are up and running, you can migrate your workload to the new nodes.
  4. Then cleanup the old worker nodes created with KKP 2.20:
    • in the user cluster: delete the old MachineDeployment objects.
    • in the KubeVirt infrastructure cluster: delete the corresponding VirtualMachine.

Next Steps

After finishing the upgrade, check out some of the new features that were added in KKP 2.21:

Check out the changelog for a full list of changes.