What’s New in Kubernetes 1.24? Key Features and Changes Explained

Kubernetes 1.24, released in early 2022, introduces 46 enhancements. Fourteen features graduate to GA, fifteen to beta, thirteen remain in alpha, and four are deprecated or removed.

Major Themes

Dockershim Removal

The dockershim component is completely removed from the kubelet. Clusters must now use a supported container runtime such as containerd or CRI‑O . For environments that still rely on Docker Engine, the cri-dockerd shim can be used as a compatibility layer. See the migration guide at

https://kubernetes.io/blog/2022/03/31/ready-for-dockershim-removal/

.

Test APIs Disabled by Default

All new alpha test APIs are disabled by default in a fresh cluster. Existing beta APIs and newer versions of those APIs remain enabled. The enhancement tracking this change is documented at https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/3136.

Signed Release Artifacts

Release binaries are now signed with cosign ( https://github.com/sigstore/cosign) and experimental support for verifying image signatures is available (

https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/administer-cluster/verify-signed-images/

). This improves the software‑supply‑chain security of the Kubernetes release process.

OpenAPI v3 Support

Kubernetes 1.24 adds beta support for publishing the API in OpenAPI v3 format ( https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/2896).

Storage Capacity Tracking & CSI Volume Expansion (GA)

The new CSIStorageCapacity API object tracks available storage capacity per topology, enabling late binding for CSI volumes (

https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/storage/storage-capacity/#api

). CSI volume expansion also graduates to GA, allowing dynamic resizing of PersistentVolumes ( https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/284).

Non‑Preempting PriorityClass

A nonPreempting option is added to PriorityClass, allowing pods to be scheduled without preempting higher‑priority workloads ( https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/902).

In‑Tree Storage Plugin Migration

Work continues to migrate in‑tree storage plugins to CSI drivers. The Azure Disk and OpenStack Cinder plugins have already been migrated ( https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/1490, https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/1489).

gRPC Probes (Beta)

gRPC probes are now in beta and enabled by default, allowing native liveness, readiness, and startup probes for gRPC services without sidecars ( https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/2727).

Kubelet Credential Provider (Beta)

The kubelet credential provider, introduced as alpha in 1.20, graduates to beta. It enables the kubelet to retrieve image registry credentials via exec plugins instead of storing them on the node (

https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/kubelet-credential-provider/kubelet-credential-provider/

).

Contextual Logging (Alpha)

Contextual logging lets callers control log format, verbosity, and additional fields, providing finer‑grained observability ( https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/3077).

Service IP Soft‑Reservation

A new feature allows clusters to reserve a static sub‑range of service IPs, reducing the risk of IP conflicts when allocating ClusterIP services (

https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/services-networking/service/#service-ip-static-sub-range

).

CNI Version Compatibility

Before upgrading, ensure the container runtime is compatible: containerd >= 1.6.4 (or >= 1.5.11) and CRI‑O >= 1.24. Versions 1.6.0–1.6.3 of containerd have known CNI networking issues that are fixed in 1.6.4.

Other Notable GA Features

CSI Volume Expansion

Pod Overhead support (resource accounting for pod sandbox)

Non‑preempting option for PriorityClass Storage Capacity Tracking via CSIStorageCapacity Azure Disk and OpenStack Cinder in‑tree to CSI driver migrations

Efficient watch resumption after API server restart

Service annotation service.kubernetes.io/load-balancer-class to select among multiple LoadBalancer implementations

Indexed Job – adds a completion index for Jobs with a fixed completion count

Suspend field in the Jobs API for finer control of pod creation

NamespaceSelector field for PodAffinity/PodAntiAffinity

Leader migration for kube-controller-manager and cloud-controller-manager to reduce HA downtime

CertificateSigningRequest duration extension to specify certificate lifetimes

Release Notes and Binaries

Full release notes are available at

https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/master/CHANGELOG/CHANGELOG-1.24.md

. Binaries can be downloaded from the official release page

https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/releases/tag/v1.24.0

. Quick‑start options include kind ( https://kind.sigs.k8s.io/) and kubeadm (

https://kubernetes.io/docs/setup/independent/create-cluster-kubeadm/

).