v1beta1 Migration

Significant changes to the Karpenter APIs have been introduced in Karpenter v0.32.x. In this release, Karpenter APIs have advanced to v1beta1, in preparation for Karpenter v1 in the near future. The v1beta1 changes are meant to simplify and improve ease of use of those APIs, as well as solidify the APIs for the v1 release. Use this document as a reference to the changes that were introduced in the current release and as a guide to how you need to update the manifests and other Karpenter objects you created in previous Karpenter releases.

Here is some information you should know about upgrading the Karpenter controller to v0.32.x:

• Towards a v1 release: The latest version of Karpenter sets the stage for Karpenter v1. Karpenter v0.32.x implements the Karpenter v1beta1 API spec. The intention is to have v1beta1 be used as the v1 spec, with only minimal changes needed.
• Path to upgrading: This procedure assumes that you are upgrading from Karpenter v0.31.x to v0.32.x. If you are on an earlier version of Karpenter, review the Release Upgrade Notes for earlier versions’ breaking changes.
• Enhancing and renaming components: For v1beta1, APIs have been enhanced to improve and solidify Karpenter APIs. Part of these enhancements includes renaming the Kinds for all Karpenter CustomResources. The following name changes have been made:
  • Provisioner -> NodePool
  • Machine -> NodeClaim
  • AWSNodeTemplate -> EC2NodeClass
• Running v1alpha1 alongside v1beta1: Having different Kind names for v1alpha5 and v1beta1 allows them to coexist for the same Karpenter controller for v0.32.x. This gives you time to transition to the new v1beta1 APIs while existing Provisioners and other objects stay in place. Keep in mind that there is no guarantee that the two versions will be able to coexist in future Karpenter versions.

Upgrade Procedure

This procedure assumes you are running the Karpenter controller on cluster and want to upgrade that cluster to v0.32.x.

NOTE: Please read through the entire procedure before beginning the upgrade. There are major changes in this upgrade, so you should carefully evaluate your cluster and workloads before proceeding.

1. Determine the current cluster version: Run the following to make sure that your Karpenter version is v0.31.x:

   kubectl get pod -A | grep karpenter
   kubectl describe pod -n karpenter karpenter-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxx | grep Image: | grep v0.....
   

   Sample output:

   Image: public.ecr.aws/karpenter/controller:v0.31.0@sha256:d29767fa9c5c0511a3812397c932f5735234f03a7a875575422b712d15e54a77
   

   Warning

   v0.31.2 introduces minor changes to Karpenter so that rollback from v0.32.0 is supported. If you are coming from some other patch version of minor version v0.31.x, note that v0.31.4 is the only patch version that supports rollback for v1beta1.

2. Review for breaking changes: If you are already running Karpenter v0.31.x, you can skip this step. If you are running an earlier Karpenter version, you need to review the upgrade notes for each minor release.

3. Set environment variables for your cluster:

   export KARPENTER_NAMESPACE=karpenter
   export KARPENTER_VERSION=v0.32.9
   export AWS_PARTITION="aws" # if you are not using standard partitions, you may need to configure to aws-cn / aws-us-gov
   export CLUSTER_NAME="${USER}-karpenter-demo"
   export AWS_REGION="us-west-2"
   export AWS_ACCOUNT_ID="$(aws sts get-caller-identity --query Account --output text)"
   export KARPENTER_IAM_ROLE_ARN="arn:${AWS_PARTITION}:iam::${AWS_ACCOUNT_ID}:role/${CLUSTER_NAME}-karpenter"
   export CLUSTER_ENDPOINT="$(aws eks describe-cluster --name ${CLUSTER_NAME} --query "cluster.endpoint" --output text)"
   

4. Apply the new Karpenter policy and assign it to the existing Karpenter role:

   TEMPOUT=$(mktemp)
   curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aws/karpenter-provider-aws/v0.32.9/website/content/en/preview/upgrading/v1beta1-controller-policy.json > ${TEMPOUT}
   
   AWS_REGION=${AWS_REGION:=$AWS_DEFAULT_REGION} # use the default region if AWS_REGION isn't defined
   POLICY_DOCUMENT=$(envsubst < ${TEMPOUT})
   POLICY_NAME="KarpenterControllerPolicy-${CLUSTER_NAME}-v1beta1"
   ROLE_NAME="${CLUSTER_NAME}-karpenter"
   
   POLICY_ARN=$(aws iam create-policy --policy-name "${POLICY_NAME}" --policy-document "${POLICY_DOCUMENT}" | jq -r .Policy.Arn)
   aws iam attach-role-policy --role-name "${ROLE_NAME}" --policy-arn "${POLICY_ARN}"
   

5. Apply the v0.32.9 Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs):

    kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aws/karpenter-provider-aws/v0.32.9/pkg/apis/crds/karpenter.sh_provisioners.yaml
    kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aws/karpenter-provider-aws/v0.32.9/pkg/apis/crds/karpenter.sh_machines.yaml
    kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aws/karpenter-provider-aws/v0.32.9/pkg/apis/crds/karpenter.k8s.aws_awsnodetemplates.yaml
    kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aws/karpenter-provider-aws/v0.32.9/pkg/apis/crds/karpenter.sh_nodepools.yaml
    kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aws/karpenter-provider-aws/v0.32.9/pkg/apis/crds/karpenter.sh_nodeclaims.yaml
    kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aws/karpenter-provider-aws/v0.32.9/pkg/apis/crds/karpenter.k8s.aws_ec2nodeclasses.yaml
   

6. Upgrade Karpenter to the new version:

   helm registry logout public.ecr.aws
   
   helm upgrade --install karpenter oci://public.ecr.aws/karpenter/karpenter --version ${KARPENTER_VERSION} --namespace karpenter --create-namespace \
     --set serviceAccount.annotations."eks\.amazonaws\.com/role-arn"=${KARPENTER_IAM_ROLE_ARN} \
     --set settings.aws.defaultInstanceProfile=KarpenterNodeInstanceProfile-${CLUSTER_NAME} \
     --set settings.clusterName=${CLUSTER_NAME} \
     --set settings.interruptionQueue=${CLUSTER_NAME} \
     --set controller.resources.requests.cpu=1 \
     --set controller.resources.requests.memory=1Gi \
     --set controller.resources.limits.cpu=1 \
     --set controller.resources.limits.memory=1Gi \
     --wait
   

   Note

   Karpenter has deprecated and moved a number of Helm values as part of the v1beta1 release. Ensure that you upgrade to the newer version of these helm values during your migration to v1beta1. You can find detail for all the settings that were moved in the v1beta1 Upgrade Reference.

7. Install the karpenter-convert tool to help convert the alpha Karpenter manifests to beta manifests:

   go install github.com/aws/karpenter/tools/karpenter-convert/cmd/karpenter-convert@release-v0.32.x
   

8. Convert each AWSNodeTemplate to an EC2NodeClass. To convert your v1alpha Karpenter manifests to v1beta1, you can either manually apply changes to API components or use the karpenter-convert CLI tool. See the AWSNodeTemplate to EC2NodeClass section of the Karpenter Upgrade Reference for details on how to update to Karpenter AWSNodeTemplate objects.

   For each EC2NodeClass, specify the $KARPENTER_NODE_ROLE you will use for nodes launched with this node class. Karpenter v1beta1 drops the need for managing your own instance profile and uses node roles directly. The example below shows how to migrate your AWSNodeTemplate to an EC2NodeClass if your node role is the same role that was used when creating your cluster with the Getting Started Guide.

   export KARPENTER_NODE_ROLE="KarpenterNodeRole-${CLUSTER_NAME}"
   karpenter-convert -f awsnodetemplate.yaml | envsubst > ec2nodeclass.yaml
   

9. When you are satisfied with your EC2NodeClass file, apply it as follows:

   kubectl apply -f ec2nodeclass.yaml
   

10. Convert each Provisioner to a NodePool. Again, either manually update your Provisioner manifests or use the karpenter-convert CLI tool:

    karpenter-convert -f provisioner.yaml > nodepool.yaml
    

11. When you are satisfied with your NodePool file, apply it as follows:

    kubectl apply -f nodepool.yaml
    

12. Roll over nodes: With the new NodePool yaml in hand, there are several ways you can begin to roll over your nodes to use the new NodePool:

    1. Periodic Rolling with Expiration:

       • Add the following taint to the old Provisioner: karpenter.sh/legacy=true:NoSchedule
       • Set the Expiration in your Provisioner to a small value like ttlSecondsUntilExpired: 300 to mark all nodes older than 5 minutes as expired. Please note that in beta APIs, this is the same as disruption.expireAfter
       • Watch as replacement nodes are launched from the new NodePool resource.

       Because Karpenter will only roll one node at a time, it may take some time for Karpenter to completely roll all nodes under a Provisioner.

    2. Forced Deletion: For each Provisioner in your cluster:

       • Delete the old Provisioner with: kubectl delete provisioner <provisioner-name> --cascade=foreground
       • Wait as Karpenter deletes all the Provisioner’s nodes. All nodes will drain simultaneously. New nodes are launched after the old ones have been drained.

    3. Manual Rolling: For each Provisioner in your cluster:

       • Add the following taint to the old Provisioner: karpenter.sh/legacy=true:NoSchedule
       • For all the nodes owned by the Provisioner, delete one at a time as follows: kubectl delete node <node-name>

13. Update workload labels: Old alpha labels (karpenter.sh/do-not-consolidate and karpenter.sh/do-not-evict) are deprecated, but will not be dropped until Karpenter v1. However, you can begin updating those labels at any time with karpenter.sh/do-not-disrupt.

    Any pods that specified a karpenter.sh/provisioner-name:DoesNotExist requirement also need to add a karpenter.sh/nodepool:DoesNotExist requirement to ensure that the pods continue to not schedule to nodes unmanaged by Karpenter while migrating to v1beta1.

14. Ensure that there are no more Machine resources on your cluster. You should see No resources found when running the following command:

     kubectl get machines
    

15. Once there are no more Machines on your cluster, it is safe to delete the other Karpenter configuration resources. You can do so by running the following commands:

    kubectl delete provisioners --all
    kubectl delete awsnodetemplates --all
    

16. Remove the alpha instance profile(s). If you were just using the InstanceProfile deployed through the Getting Started Guide, delete the KarpenterNodeInstanceProfile section from the CloudFormation. Alternatively, if you want to remove the instance profile manually, you can run the following command

    ROLE_NAME="KarpenterNodeRole-${CLUSTER_NAME}"
    INSTANCE_PROFILE_NAME="KarpenterNodeInstanceProfile-${CLUSTER_NAME}"
    aws iam remove-role-from-instance-profile --instance-profile-name "${INSTANCE_PROFILE_NAME}" --role-name "${ROLE_NAME}"
    aws iam delete-instance-profile --instance-profile-name "${INSTANCE_PROFILE_NAME}"
    

17. Finally, remove the alpha policy from the controller role: This will remove any remaining permissions from the alpha APIs. You can orchestrate the removal of this policy with the following command:

    ROLE_NAME="${CLUSTER_NAME}-karpenter"
    POLICY_NAME="KarpenterControllerPolicy-${CLUSTER_NAME}"
    POLICY_ARN=$(aws iam list-policies --query "Policies[?PolicyName=='${POLICY_NAME}'].Arn" --output text)
    aws iam detach-role-policy --role-name "${ROLE_NAME}" --policy-arn "${POLICY_ARN}"
    

Changelog

Provisioner -> NodePool

Karpenter v1beta1 moves almost all top-level fields under the NodePool template field. Similar to Deployments (which template Pods that are orchestrated by the deployment controller), Karpenter NodePool templates NodeClaims (that are orchestrated by the Karpenter controller). Here is an example of a Provisioner (v1alpha5) migrated to a NodePool (v1beta1):

Note that:

• The Limits and Weight fields sit outside of the template section. The Labels and Annotations fields from the Provisioner are now under the spec.template.metadata section. All other fields including requirements, taints, kubelet, and so on, are specified under the spec.template.spec section.
• Support for spec.template.spec.kubelet.containerRuntime has been dropped. If you are using EKS 1.23 you should upgrade to containerd before using Karpenter v0.32.0, as this field in the kubelet block of the NodePool is not supported. EKS 1.24+ only supports containerd as a supported runtime.

Provisioner example (v1alpha)

apiVersion: karpenter.sh/v1alpha5
kind: Provisioner
 ...
spec:
  providerRef:
    name: default
  annotations:
    custom-annotation: custom-value
  labels:
    team: team-a
    custom-label: custom-value
  requirements:
  - key: karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-generation
    operator: Gt
    values: ["3"]
  - key: karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-category
    operator: In
    values: ["c", "m", "r"]
  - key: karpenter.sh/capacity-type
    operator: In
    values: ["spot"]
  taints:
  - key: example.com/special-taint
    value: "true"
    effect: NoSchedule
  startupTaints:
  - key: example.com/another-taint
    value: "true"
    effect: NoSchedule
  kubelet:
    systemReserved:
      cpu: 100m
      memory: 100Mi
      ephemeral-storage: 1Gi
    maxPods: 20
  limits:
    resources:
      cpu: 1000
      memory: 1000Gi
  weight: 50

NodePool example (v1beta1)

apiVersion: karpenter.sh/v1beta1
kind: NodePool
...
spec:
  template:
    metadata:
      annotations:
        custom-annotation: custom-value
      labels:
        team: team-a
        custom-label: custom-value
    spec:
      requirements:
      - key: karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-generation
        operator: Gt
        values: ["3"]
      - key: karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-category
        operator: In
        values: ["c", "m", "r"]
      - key: karpenter.sh/capacity-type
        operator: In
        values: ["spot"]
      taints:
      - key: example.com/special-taint
        value: "true"
        effect: NoSchedule
      startupTaints:
      - key: example.com/another-taint
        value: "true"
        effect: NoSchedule
      kubelet:
        systemReserved:
          cpu: 100m
          memory: 100Mi
          ephemeral-storage: 1Gi
        maxPods: 20
  limits:
    cpu: 1000
    memory: 1000Gi
  weight: 50

Provider

The Karpenter spec.provider field has been deprecated since version v0.7.0 and is now removed in the new NodePool resource. Any of the fields that you could specify within the spec.provider field are now available in the separate NodeClass resource.

Provider example (v1alpha)

apiVersion: karpenter.sh/v1alpha5
kind: Provisioner
...
spec:
  provider:
    amiFamily: Bottlerocket
    tags:
      test-tag: test-value

Nodepool example (v1beta1)

apiVersion: karpenter.sh/v1beta1
kind: NodePool
...
nodeClassRef:
  apiVersion: karpenter.k8s.aws/v1beta1
  kind: EC2NodeClass
  name: default

EC2NodeClass example (v1beta1)

apiVersion: karpenter.k8s.aws/v1beta1
kind: EC2NodeClass
metadata:
  name: default
spec:
  amiFamily: Bottlerocket
  tags:
    test-tag: test-value

TTLSecondsAfterEmpty

The Karpenter spec.ttlSecondsAfterEmpty field has been removed in favor of a consolidationPolicy and consolidateAfter field.

As part of the v1beta1 migration, Karpenter has chosen to collapse the concepts of emptiness and underutilization into a single concept: consolidation. You can now define the types of consolidation that you want to support in your consolidationPolicy field. The current values for this field are WhenEmpty or WhenUnderutilized (defaulting to WhenUnderutilized if not specified). If specifying WhenEmpty, you can define how long you wish to wait for consolidation to act on your empty nodes by tuning the consolidateAfter parameter. This field works the same as the ttlSecondsAfterEmpty field except this field now accepts either of the following values:

• Never: This disables empty consolidation.
• Duration String (e.g. “10m”, “1s”): This enables empty consolidation for the time specified.

ttlSecondsAfterEmpty example (v1alpha)

apiVersion: karpenter.sh/v1alpha5
kind: Provisioner
...
spec:
  ttlSecondsAfterEmpty: 120

consolidationPolicy and consolidateAfter examples (v1beta1)

apiVersion: karpenter.sh/v1beta1
kind: NodePool
...
spec:
  disruption:
    consolidationPolicy: WhenEmpty
    consolidateAfter: 2m

Consolidation

The Karpenter spec.consolidation block has also been shifted under consolidationPolicy. If you were previously enabling Karpenter’s consolidation feature for underutilized nodes using the consolidation.enabled flag, you now enable consolidation through the consolidationPolicy.

consolidation enabled example (v1alpha)

apiVersion: karpenter.sh/v1alpha5
kind: Provisioner
...
spec:
  consolidation:
    enabled: true

consolidationPolicy WhenUnderutilized example (v1beta1)

apiVersion: karpenter.sh/v1beta1
kind: NodePool
...
spec:
  disruption:
    consolidationPolicy: WhenUnderutilized

Note: You currently can’t set the consolidateAfter field when specifying consolidationPolicy: WhenUnderutilized. Karpenter will use a 15s consolidateAfter runtime default.

TTLSecondsUntilExpired

The Karpenter spec.ttlSecondsUntilExpired field has been removed in favor of the expireAfter field inside of the disruption block. This field works the same as it did before except this field now accepts either of the following values:

• Never: This disables expiration.
• Duration String (e.g. “10m”, “1s”): This enables expiration for the time specified.

consolidation ttlSecondsUntilExpired example (v1alpha)

apiVersion: karpenter.sh/v1alpha5
kind: Provisioner
...
spec:
  ttlSecondsUntilExpired: 2592000 # 30 Days = 60 * 60 * 24 * 30 Seconds

consolidationPolicy WhenUnderutilized example (v1beta1)

apiVersion: karpenter.sh/v1beta1
kind: NodePool
...
spec:
  disruption:
    expireAfter: 720h # 30 days = 30 * 24 Hours

Defaults

Karpenter now statically defaults some fields in the v1beta1 if they are not specified when applying the NodePool configuration. The following fields are defaulted if unspecified.

spec.template.spec.requirements Defaults Dropped

Karpenter v1beta1 drops the defaulting logic for the node requirements that were shipped by default with Provisioners in v1alpha5. Previously, Karpenter would create dynamic defaulting in the following cases. If multiple of these cases were satisfied, those default requirements would be combined:

• If you didn’t specify any instance type requirement:

  spec:
    requirements:
    - key: karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-category
      operator: In
      values: ["c", "m", "r"]
    - key: karpenter.k8s.aws/instance-generation
      operator: In
      values: ["2"]
  

• If you didn’t specify any capacity type requirement (karpenter.sh/capacity-type):

  spec:
    requirements:
    - key: karpenter.sh/capacity-type
      operator: In
      values: ["on-demand"]
  

• If you didn’t specify any OS requirement (kubernetes.io/os):

  spec:
    requirements:
    - key: kubernetes.io/os
      operator: In
      values: ["linux"]
  

• If you didn’t specify any architecture requirement (kubernetes.io/arch):

  spec:
    requirements:
    - key: kubernetes.io/arch
      operator: In
      values: ["amd64"]
  

If you were previously relying on this defaulting logic, you will now need to explicitly specify these requirements in your NodePool.

AWSNodeTemplate -> EC2NodeClass

To configure AWS-specific settings, AWSNodeTemplate (v1alpha) is being changed to EC2NodeClass (v1beta1). Below are ways in which you can update your manifests for the new version.

InstanceProfile

The Karpenter spec.instanceProfile field has been removed from the EC2NodeClass in favor of the spec.role field. Karpenter is also removing support for the defaultInstanceProfile specified globally in the karpenter-global-settings, making the spec.role field required for all EC2NodeClasses.

Karpenter will now auto-generate the instance profile in your EC2NodeClass, given the role that you specify. To find the role, type:

export INSTANCE_PROFILE_NAME=KarpenterNodeInstanceProfile-bob-karpenter-demo
aws iam get-instance-profile --instance-profile-name $INSTANCE_PROFILE_NAME --query "InstanceProfile.Roles[0].RoleName"
KarpenterNodeRole-bob-karpenter-demo

instanceProfile example (v1alpha)

apiVersion: karpenter.k8s.aws/v1alpha1
kind: AWSNodeTemplate
...
spec:
  instanceProfile: KarpenterNodeInstanceProfile-karpenter-demo

role example (v1beta1)

apiVersion: karpenter.k8s.aws/v1beta1
kind: EC2NodeClass
...
spec:
  role: KarpenterNodeRole-karpenter-demo

SubnetSelector, SecurityGroupSelector, and AMISelector

Karpenter’s spec.subnetSelector, spec.securityGroupSelector, and spec.amiSelector fields have been modified to support multiple terms and to first-class keys like id and name. If using comma-delimited strings in your tag, id, or name values, you may need to create separate terms for the new fields.

subnetSelector example (v1alpha)

apiVersion: karpenter.k8s.aws/v1alpha1
kind: AWSNodeTemplate
...
spec:
  subnetSelector:
    karpenter.sh/discovery: karpenter-demo

SubnetSelectorTerms.tags example (v1beta1)

apiVersion: karpenter.k8s.aws/v1beta1
kind: EC2NodeClass
...
spec:
  subnetSelectorTerms:
  - tags:
      karpenter.sh/discovery: karpenter-demo

subnetSelector example (v1alpha)

apiVersion: karpenter.k8s.aws/v1alpha1
kind: AWSNodeTemplate
...
spec:
  subnetSelector:
    aws::ids: subnet-123,subnet-456

subnetSelectorTerms.id example (v1beta1)

apiVersion: karpenter.k8s.aws/v1beta1
kind: EC2NodeClass
...
spec:
  subnetSelectorTerms:
  - id: subnet-123
  - id: subnet-456

securityGroupSelector example (v1alpha)

apiVersion: karpenter.k8s.aws/v1alpha1
kind: AWSNodeTemplate
...
spec:
  securityGroupSelector:
    karpenter.sh/discovery: karpenter-demo

securityGroupSelectorTerms.tags example (v1beta1)

apiVersion: compute.k8s.aws/v1beta1
kind: EC2NodeClass
...
spec:
  securityGroupSelectorTerms:
  - tags:
      karpenter.sh/discovery: karpenter-demo

securityGroupSelector example (v1alpha)

apiVersion: karpenter.k8s.aws/v1alpha1
kind: AWSNodeTemplate
...
spec:
  securityGroupSelector:
    aws::ids: sg-123, sg-456

securityGroupSelectorTerms.id example (v1beta1)

apiVersion: compute.k8s.aws/v1beta1
kind: EC2NodeClass
...
spec:
  securityGroupSelectorTerms:
  - id: sg-123
  - id: sg-456

amiSelector example (v1alpha)

apiVersion: karpenter.k8s.aws/v1alpha1
kind: AWSNodeTemplate
...
spec:
  amiSelector:
    karpenter.sh/discovery: karpenter-demo

amiSelectorTerms.tags example (v1beta1)

apiVersion: compute.k8s.aws/v1beta1
kind: EC2NodeClass
...
spec:
  amiSelectorTerms:
  - tags:
      karpenter.sh/discovery: karpenter-demo

amiSelector example (v1alpha)

apiVersion: karpenter.k8s.aws/v1alpha1
kind: AWSNodeTemplate
...
spec:
  amiSelector:
    aws::ids: ami-123,ami-456

amiSelectorTerms example (v1beta1)

apiVersion: compute.k8s.aws/v1beta1
kind: EC2NodeClass
...
spec:
  amiSelectorTerms:
  - id: ami-123
  - id: ami-456

amiSelector example (v1alpha)

apiVersion: karpenter.k8s.aws/v1alpha1
kind: AWSNodeTemplate
...
spec:
  amiSelector:
    aws::name: my-name1,my-name2
    aws::owners: 123456789,amazon

amiSelectorTerms.name example (v1beta1)

apiVersion: compute.k8s.aws/v1beta1
kind: EC2NodeClass
...
spec:
  amiSelectorTerms:
  - name: my-name1
    owner: 123456789
  - name: my-name2
    owner: 123456789
  - name: my-name1
    owner: amazon
  - name: my-name2
    owner: amazon

LaunchTemplateName

The spec.launchTemplateName field for referencing unmanaged launch templates within Karpenter has been removed. Find a discussion of the decision to remove spec.launchTemplateName, see RFC: Unmanaged LaunchTemplate Removal.

AMIFamily

The AMIFamily field is now required. If you were previously not specifying the AMIFamily field, having Karpenter default the AMIFamily to AL2, you will now have to specify AL2 explicitly.

Annotations, Labels, and Status Conditions

Karpenter v1beta1 introduces changes to some common labels, annotations, and status conditions that are present in the project. The tables below lists the v1alpha5 values and their v1beta1 equivalent.

Note: Previously, you could use the karpenter.sh/provisioner-name:DoesNotExist requirement on pods to specify that pods should schedule to nodes unmanaged by Karpenter. With the addition of the karpenter.sh/nodepool label key, you now need to specify the karpenter.sh/nodepool:DoesNotExist requirement on these pods as well to ensure they don’t schedule to nodes provisioned by the new NodePool resources.

Note: Karpenter dropped the karpenter.sh/do-not-consolidate annotation in favor of the karpenter.sh/do-not-disrupt annotation on nodes. This annotation specifies that no voluntary disruption should be performed by Karpenter against this node.

IAM Controller Permissions

v1beta1 introduces changes to the IAM permissions assigned to the Karpenter controller policy used when deploying Karpenter to your cluster with IRSA or EKS Pod Identity.

You can see a full example of the v1beta1 required controller permissions by viewing the v1beta1 Controller Policy.

Additionally, read more detail about the full set of permissions assigned to the Karpenter controller policy in the CloudFormation Reference Guide.

Updating Tag-Based Permissions

Since Karpenter v1beta1 introduces changes to custom resource, label, and annotation naming, this also changes the tag keys that Karpenter uses to tag instances, volumes launch templates, and any other resources that Karpenter deploys and manages.

By default, when using the Karpenter Getting Started Guide to setup Karpenter on your cluster, you will deploy an IAM policy that scopes Karpenter’s permissions based on tag keys and values using ABAC. Any part of the Karpenter alpha controller policy which previously referenced aws:RequestTag:karpenter.sh/provisioner-name or aws:ResourceTag:karpenter.sh/provisioner-name is now updated in v1beta1 to be aws:RequestTag:karpenter.sh/nodepool and aws:ResourceTag:karpenter.sh/nodepool.

Updating IAM Instance Profile Permissions

Additionally, starting in v1beta1, Karpenter removes the need for you to manage your own instance profiles used to launch EC2 instances, allowing you to only specify the role that you want assigned to your instances in the spec.role of the EC2NodeClass. When you do this, Karpenter will generate and manage an instance profile on your behalf.

To enable this functionality, you need to add iam: permissions that give Karpenter permission to generate and managed instance profiles. These permissions include iam:CreateInstanceProfile, iam:TagInstanceProfile, iam:AddRoleToInstanceProfile, iam:RemoveRoleFromInstanceProfile, iam:DeleteInstanceProfile, and iam:GetInstanceProfile. Each of these permissions is scoped down to only operate on instance profiles generated from a single Karpenter instance on a single Karpenter cluster using ABAC.

Metrics

The following table shows v1alpha5 metrics and the v1beta1 version of each metric. All metrics on this table will exist simultaneously, while both v1alpha5 and v1beta1 are supported within the same version.

In addition to these metrics, the MachineNotFound error returned by the karpenter_cloudprovider_errors_total values in the error label has been changed to NodeClaimNotFound. This is agnostic to the version of the API (Machine or NodeClaim) that actually owns the instance.

Global Settings

The v1beta1 specification removes the karpenter-global-settings ConfigMap in favor of setting all Karpenter configuration using environment variables. Along, with this change, Karpenter has chosen to remove certain global variables that can be configured with more specificity in the EC2NodeClass . These values are marked as removed below.

NOTE: The aws.defaultInstanceProfile was dropped because Karpenter no longer utilizes instance profiles but creates a managed version of an instance profile based on an EC2NodeClass role. The aws.enablePodENI was dropped since Karpenter will now always assume that vpc.amazonaws.com/pod-eni resource exists. The aws.enableENILimitedPodDensity was dropped since you can now override the --max-pods value for kubelet in the spec.kubelet.maxPods for NodeClaims or NodeClaimTemplates.

Helm Values

The v1beta1 helm chart comes with a number of changes to the values that were previously used in v0.31.x. Your older helm values will continue to work throughout v0.32.x but any values no longer specified in the chart will no longer be supported starting in v0.33.0.

Drift Enabled by Default

The drift feature will now be enabled by default starting from v0.33.0. If you don’t specify the Drift featureGate, the feature will be assumed to be enabled. You can disable the drift feature by specifying –feature-gates Drift=false. This feature gate is expected to be dropped when core APIs (NodePool, NodeClaim) are bumped to v1.

Logging Configuration is No Longer Dynamic

As part of this deprecation, Karpenter will no longer call out to the APIServer to discover the ConfigMap. Instead, Karpenter will expect the ConfigMap to be mounted on the filesystem at /etc/karpenter/logging/zap-logger-config. You can also still choose to override the individual log level of components of the system (webhook and controller) at the paths /etc/karpenter/logging/loglevel.webhook and /etc/karpenter/logging/loglevel.controller.

What you do to upgrade this feature depends on how you install Karpenter:

• If you are using the helm chart to install Karpenter, you won’t need to make any changes for Karpenter to begin using this new mechanism for loading the config.

• If you are manually configuring the deployment for Karpenter, you will need to add the following sections to your deployment:

  apiVersion: apps/v1
  kind: Deployment
  spec:
    template:
      spec:
      ...
        containers:
        - name: controller
          volumeMounts:
          - name: config-logging
            mountPath: /etc/karpenter/logging
        volumes:
        - name: config-logging
          configMap:
            name: config-logging
  

Karpenter will drop support for ConfigMap discovery through the APIServer starting in v0.33.0, meaning that you will need to ensure that you are mounting the config file on the expected filepath by that version.

Webhook Support Deprecated in Favor of CEL

Karpenter v1beta1 APIs now support Common Expression Language (CEL) for validaiton directly through the APIServer. This change means that Karpenter’s validating webhooks are no longer needed to ensure that Karpenter’s NodePools and EC2NodeClasses are configured correctly.

As a result, Karpenter will now disable webhooks by default by setting the DISABLE_WEBHOOK environment variable to true starting in v0.33.0. If you are currently on a version of Kubernetes < less than 1.25, CEL validation for Custom Resources is not enabled. We recommend that you enable the webhooks on these versions with DISABLE_WEBHOOK=false to get proper validation support for any Karpenter configuration.