The new release of Talos OS, our modern operating system for secure Kubernetes hosts, is out! Version 0.7 includes updated releases of Kubernetes (version 1.19.3) and Linux (5.9.3). Major new features include:
- ARM support: ARM-based images are now built for all cloud platforms. Want to run a secure Kubernetes cluster using Talos OS on AWS graviton nodes? We’ve gotcha! ARM support in Talos is still a work in progress–if you have any questions or run into problems, please let us know! Expect to see Talos OS on devices like the Raspberry Pi soon!
- Switch to Grub bootloader (replacing syslinux). This was necessary to enable ARM support, but also allowed Talos OS to use the robust xfs filesystem for the boot partition, instead of the more fragile vfat. Note that changing the bootloader means that there is no rollback to the old partition for this upgrade.
- Install from ISO: Talos OS is now easily installed from ISOs: A new “maintenance mode” allows installation of Talos via ISO, without generating a configuration file in advance. This feature is not yet fully documented, but booting from an ISO will start a web server that will be reported on the console. You can use this maintenance mode and talosctl to supply the configuration at run-time to Talos and complete installation.
- A new configuration update API which allows you to push an updated configuration to a node and restart, without having to deploy a brand-new node. This allows you to modify kernel configurations, disk mounts, etc on existing nodes.
- Node configuration files are now more complete and self-documenting, with many examples of different Talos features that can be enabled. (See the blog post for a look at how the Talos team was able to generate commented YAML automatically).
- A revamped documentation site. Comments and bug reports appreciated!
As always, this release includes more operating system APIs, lots of stability and performance improvements, and bug fixes.
Other New Features and APIs
- The Talos network configuration API now allows you to modify MTU settings and routes, as well as retrieve DHCP metrics.
- This release adds support for link local networking.
- A new set of APIs to manage etcd has been added to this release.
- You can now retrieve disk usage via API.
Package Updates
Each release of Talos includes updated system components. Talos 0.7 includes the following updates:
- Kubernetes 1.19.3
- Linux 5.9.3
- Flannel 0.15
- Runc v1.0.0-rc92
- Containerd to v1.4.1
- Go 1.15.5
- etcd 3.4.12
Bug Fixes and Performance Improvements
As always, this release contains a variety of bug fixes and stability and performance improvements. To find out more, you can see the full changelog.
You may also want to check out our YouTube channel for videos explaining how the upgrade process works on a Talos cluster, how to run Talos OS on qemu, proxmox, VirtualBox, and more!
As always, if you have questions or want to contribute, you can join our slack channel or find us on GitHub.