New Features and Notable Changes

Release 1.5.13

This section lists the notable changes in Release 1.5.13 of Oracle Cloud Native Environment.

Kubernetes Updated: Kubernetes is updated to Release 1.24.15.

Release 1.5.12

This section lists the notable changes in Release 1.5.12 of Oracle Cloud Native Environment.

Kubernetes Updated: Kubernetes is updated to Release 1.24.8-2.

Istio Updated: Istio is updated to Release 1.15.7.

Release 1.5.10

This section lists the notable changes in Release 1.5.10 of Oracle Cloud Native Environment.

Istio Updated: Istio is updated to Release 1.15.3.

Release 1.5.9

This section lists the notable changes in Release 1.5.9 of Oracle Cloud Native Environment.

Quick Installation:: A fix was applied to olcnectl to resolve an issue that caused argument mishandling for External IP restrictions during provisioning.

Release 1.5.8

This section lists the notable changes in Release 1.5.8 of Oracle Cloud Native Environment.

Kubernetes Updated: Kubernetes is updated to Release 1.24.8.

Quick Installation: The olcnectl provision command has been improved to resolve some issues using a configuration file to perform a quick installation.

A new Quick Installation document is also available, which provides information on using the olcnectl provision command to perform a quick installation.

Release 1.5.7

This section lists the notable changes in Release 1.5.7 of Oracle Cloud Native Environment.

Updated Components

The following components have been updated:

Kubernetes: Kubernetes is updated to Release 1.24.5. For a list of the Kubernetes API Server changes since the last update in Oracle Cloud Native Environment, see the upstream Kubernetes Release Notes. This shows the changes in Release 1.24.0.

CRI-O: CRI-O is updated to Release 1.24.2.

Istio: Istio is updated to Release 1.14.3.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Cloud Controller Manager: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Cloud Controller Manager is updated to Release 1.24.0.

Helm: Helm is updated to Release 3.9.4.

Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 7

The host operating system requirements now includes the option to run Oracle Linux 8 with the Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel Release 7 (UEK R7).

Custom Istio Profiles

The Istio module has been improved to allow for multiple Istio modules to be installed using custom profiles, while retaining a single Istio control plane.

The Platform CLI has been improved to add new options to the olcnectl module create command for the istio module to include the following new options:

--istio-enable-grafana {true|false}

Sets whether to deploy the Grafana module to visualize the metrics stored in Prometheus for Istio. The default is true.

--istio-enable-prometheus {true|false}

Sets whether to deploy the Prometheus module to store the metrics for Istio. The default is true.

--istio-parent name

The name of the istio module to use with a custom profile. When used with the --istio-profile option, allows multiple instances of the istio module to attach Istio platform components to a single Istio control plane. When this option is set, the default Istio profile is replaced with the a mostly empty profile. The only contents of the profile are the container image hub location, and tags that correspond to the currently installed version of the istio module.

--istio-profile path

The path to the file that contains the spec section of an IstioOperator resource from the install.istio.io/v1alpha1 Kubernetes API. The values in this resource are laid over top of, and override, the default profile for Istio.

For information on the IstioOperator resource file, see the upstream Istio documentation.

For information on using custom Istio profiles, see Service Mesh.

Quick Installation

The Platform CLI has been improved with new commands that allow for faster installation and Oracle Cloud Native Environment platform set up. To use these commands, you must first install the Platform CLI package, olcnectl. The new olcnectl commands are:

olcnectl certificates copy

Copy generated CA Certificates to the Kubernetes nodes.

olcnectl certificates distribute

Distribute and install generated CA Certificates to the Kubernetes nodes.

olcnectl certificates generate

Generates CA Certificates.

olcnectl node install-agent

Installs the Platform Agent software packages on Kubernetes nodes.

olcnectl node install-api-server

Installs the Platform API Server software packages on Kubernetes nodes.

olcnectl node install-certificates

Installs the CA Certificates and key for the Platform API Server and Platform Agent to the nodes, with the appropriate file ownership.

olcnectl node setup-kubernetes

Sets up nodes to prepare for an installation of the Kubernetes module.

olcnectl node setup-package-repositories

Sets up the software package repositories on nodes.

olcnectl node setup-platform

Installs the Oracle Cloud Native Environment Platform API Server on the operator node and the Platform Agent on Kubernetes nodes, and starts the services.

olcnectl node start-platform

Configures the network ports on nodes. Starts the Platform API Server service on the operator node and the Platform Agent service on Kubernetes nodes.

olcnectl provision

Sets up the nodes, creates and distributes certificates, and installs the Oracle Cloud Native Environment platform (the Platform API Server and the Platform Agent), including installing the Kubernetes module.

For information on using the olcnectl provision command to perform a quick installation, see Quick Installation.

Important:

The Oracle Cloud Native Environment documentation is not yet updated with the full information on how to use this new feature. The documentation will be made available as soon as possible.

Release 1.5.6

This section lists the notable changes in Release 1.5.6 of Oracle Cloud Native Environment.

The following components have been updated:

Kubernetes Updated: Kubernetes is updated to Release 1.23.11.

Release 1.5.5

This section lists the notable changes in Release 1.5.5 of Oracle Cloud Native Environment.

The following components have been updated:

Istio Updated: Istio is updated to Release 1.13.7.

September 2022 Improvements

The following improvements have been made in September 2022:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8: The host operating system requirements now include the option to run Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 with the Red Hat Kernel.

July 2022 Improvements

The following improvements have been made in July 2022:

Red Hat Compatible Kernel: The host operating system requirements now include the option to run Oracle Linux 8 with the Red Hat Compatible Kernel (RHCK).

Updating/Upgrading the Platform Agent: The documentation is improved to include an easier process to update or upgrade the Platform agent on nodes. For more information, see Documentation Changes.

Release 1.5.4

This section lists the notable changes in Release 1.5.4 of Oracle Cloud Native Environment.

The following components have been updated:

Kubernetes Updated: Kubernetes is updated to Release 1.23.7.

CRI-O Updated: CRI-O is updated to Release 1.23.3.

Istio Updated: Istio is updated to Release 1.13.5.

Release 1.5.0

This section lists the notable changes in Release 1.5.0 of Oracle Cloud Native Environment.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Cloud Controller Manager Module: This module (previously named the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Container Storage Interface module) is enhanced to provision network load balancers for Kubernetes applications in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (in addition to providing storage). This allows you to provide IP addresses to Kubernetes applications to allow external access to those applications. The Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Cloud Controller Manager module provides the option to use a Kubernetes LoadBalancer service in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

For information on setting up the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Cloud Controller Manager module for application load balancers, see Application Load Balancers.

For information on setting up the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Cloud Controller Manager module for application storage, see Storage.

MetalLB Module: A new module is added to install and use MetalLB as a network load balancer for Kubernetes applications. This allows you to use MetalLB to provide IP addresses to Kubernetes applications to allow external access to those applications. The MetalLB module provides the option to use a Kubernetes LoadBalancer service in a bare metal deployment.

For information on the MetalLB module, see Application Load Balancers.

Compact Kubernetes Cluster: A new option to taint or untaint control plane nodes is added. This allows non-system Kubernetes workloads to be scheduled and run on control plane nodes and thereby reduce the number of nodes needed for a cluster.

A new --compact option is added to the olcnectl module create command to allow you to set this when you create a Kubernetes module. A new --compact option is also added to the olcnectl module update command to allow you to modify this setting for an existing Kubernetes module.

For production environments, you must not untaint control plane nodes.