What’s New in Kubernetes 1.18? Key Features and Enhancements Explained

Main Features of Kubernetes 1.18

Kubernetes 1.18 was released on March 26 2020 and bundles 38 enhancements: 15 have reached stable, 11 are in beta, and 12 remain in alpha.

1. Topology Manager (beta)

The Topology Manager aligns CPU and device allocation with NUMA topology, preventing sub‑optimal placement on multi‑socket systems and improving latency‑sensitive workloads.

2. ServerSideApply v2 (beta)

Enhanced ServerSideApply now tracks field changes for all new Kubernetes objects, allowing the system to know what changed and when.

3. IngressClass and pathType (stable)

Ingress gains two important additions: the pathType field (with values ImplementationSpecific, Exact, and Prefix) and the IngressClass resource, which replaces the deprecated kubernetes.io/ingress.class annotation and is referenced via ingressClassName.

4. kubectl alpha debug (alpha)

This command creates a temporary sidecar container alongside a target pod, attaching it to the console for interactive debugging without modifying the original pod.

5. Windows CSI Support (alpha)

An alpha Windows CSI driver enables privileged storage operations on Windows containers, allowing CSI drivers to run on Windows nodes.

Features Graduated to Stable

Pod eviction improvements – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/166 kubectl diff – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/491

CSI block storage support – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/565

API Server dry‑run – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/576

Pass pod info in CSI calls – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/603

vSphere Cloud Provider out‑of‑tree support – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/670

GMSA support for Windows workloads – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/689

Skip attaching non‑attachable CSI volumes – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/770

PVC cloning – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/989

Move kubectl code to staging – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/1020

RunAsUserName for Windows – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/1043

AppProtocol for Services and Endpoints – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/1507

Extended huge‑page support – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/1539

Client‑side apply refactor – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/1601

Node‑local DNS cache – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/1024

Major API Changes

EndpointSlice API – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/752

Move kubectl code to staging (re‑listed) – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/1020

CertificateSigningRequest API – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/1513

Extended huge‑page support – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/1539

Client‑side apply refactor – https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/1601