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Release Notes
Version 1.39.0 - 2026-09-01
Highlights
- Add support for Kubernetes v1.36 and v1.37 (default: v1.37.0)
- Default container runtime is now containerd
- Add Traefik Helm-based ingress addon
- VirtualBox driver now supports Apple Silicon (VirtualBox 7.1+)
Features
- Add support for Kubernetes v1.36 and v1.37 (default: v1.37.0) (#23567, #23596)
- Add Traefik Helm-based addon (#23225)
- Add Helm to minikube ISO (#23420)
- Upgrade default guest Helm client to Helm 4 (#23383)
- Add configurable DNS servers for VM drivers (#23069)
- Add
--mdnsflag to enable mDNS on every VM start (#22964, #23208) - drivers: Use deterministic MAC addresses (#23172)
- vfkit: Auto-select vmnet-shared network when available (#23040)
- virtualbox: Support darwin/arm64 with VirtualBox 7.1+ (#22861)
- ISO: Add systemd-coredump for crash stack traces (#23064)
- ISO: Enable kernel nftables (CONFIG_NF_TABLES) for knftables consumers (#23518)
- ISO: Enable securityfs for Calico 3.32.2 (#23592)
- ISO: Include openvswitch kernel module for aarch64 (#23151)
- ISO: Enable CONFIG_TASK_IO_ACCOUNTING and related kernel options (#23271)
- infra: Download preloads from GitHub as default and GCS as failover (#23087)
Performance
- drivers: Start VM drivers in parallel (#23112)
- Add
--vmnet-offloadingstart flag for krunkit driver (#22962) - ssh: Prefer AES-GCM ciphers for external SSH client (#23125)
- ssh: Avoid unneeded sleep when waiting for SSH server (#23001)
Bug fixes
- addons: Fix Helm verification failure inside guest VMs (#23253, #23329)
- Fix kubectl exec with cri-dockerd on Kubernetes v1.36+ by disabling ExtendWebSocketsToKubelet (#22921)
- Fix
--extra-config=etcd.*producing invalid kubeadm config (#23051) - Fix logic for multi-node CNI warning. (#22779)
- Fix SSHRunner ExitCode always returning 0 for SSH commands (#23364)
- Fix usage string for minikube node commands. (#22775)
- kvm: Check libvirt group membership before running virsh (#23369)
- Fix preserve tag for registry refs with a port (#23228)
- Use buffered channels to prevent goroutine leak on status timeout (#23215)
- Fix warning against virtualbox only when the flag is explicit (#22960)
- image load: Fix silent failure when loading an image used by a container (#23034)
- node add: Use suggestMemoryAllocation instead of hardcoded 2200MB (#23305)
- proxy: Walk RoundTripper wrappers to strip proxy on inner *http.Transport (#22910)
- vmnet: Fix brew install path on Intel Macs and support brew bin path (#23039)
- mount: Clarify need for bidirectional firewall rules (#20442)
- drivers: Deduplicate DHCP lease handling on macOS (#23084)
- hack/update: Track registry addon on the major tag (#23586)
- hack/update: Update kong image tag to 3 (#23585)
- ISO: Replace spaces with tabs in nerdctl-bin Buildroot package files (#23438)
- ISO: Attempt to fix ISO build failures (#22879)
- ISO: Fix ISO build script reliability and error handling (#23218)
- ISO: Support building the arm64 ISO on an arm64 host (#22862)
- ISO: Use binaries for docker buildx instead of build from source (#22942)
Breaking changes
- Change default container runtime to containerd (#23562)
- ISO/KIC: Limit support for cri-dockerd to x86 & arm64 and migrate cri-dockerd to pre-compiled GitHub binaries (#22922)
Addons
- Addon Headlamp: Update from v0.40.0 to v0.45.0
- Addon Volcano: Update from v1.14.1 to v1.15.1
- Addon cloud-spanner: Update from 1.5.49 to 1.5.56
- Addon ingress: Update from v1.14.3 to v1.15.1
- Addon ingress: Update kube-webhook-certgen image from v1.6.7 to v1.6.9
- Addon inspektor-gadget: Update from v0.49.1 to v0.55.1
- Addon kong: Update kong image from 3.9.1 to 3.9.3
- Addon kong: Update kong/kubernetes-ingress-controller image from 3.5.3 to 3.5.13
- Addon kubevirt: Update from v1.7.0 to v1.9.0
- Addon metrics-server: Update from v0.8.1 to v0.9.0
- Addon nvidia-device-plugin: Update from v0.18.2 to v0.20.0
- Addon registry: Update from 3.0.0 to 3.1.1
- Addon yakd: Update from 0.0.8 to 0.0.9
- HA (multi-control plane): Update kube-vip from v1.0.4 to v1.2.3
Base images
- ISO: Update Buildroot to 2025.02.16
- ISO: Update docker-buildx from v0.33.0 to v0.36.1
- ISO: Update kernel from 6.6.95 to 6.6.152
- Kicbase/ISO: Update buildkit from v0.26.3 to v0.32.2
- Kicbase/ISO: Update cni-plugins from v1.9.0 to v1.9.1
- Kicbase/ISO: Update containerd from 2.2.1 to 2.3.4
- Kicbase/ISO: Update cri-dockerd from v0.4.1 to v0.4.3
- Kicbase/ISO: Update crun from 1.26 to 1.29.1
- Kicbase/ISO: Update go from 1.26.2 to 1.26.4
- Kicbase/ISO: Update nerdctl from 2.2.1 to 2.3.5
- Kicbase/ISO: Update runc from v1.4.0 to v1.5.1
- Kicbase: Bump debian:bookworm from 20260202 to 20260713
CNI
- CNI: Update calico from v3.31.3 to v3.32.2
- CNI: Update cilium from v1.19.0 to v1.20.1
- CNI: Update flannel from v0.28.1 to v0.28.9
- CNI: Update kindnetd from v20260213-ea8e5717 to v20260820-69b56db7
Localization
Site
- docs: Add tutorial for running minikube on AWS EC2 (#23017)
- docs: Fix tunnel desc link (#22389)
- Fix ai-playground.md request limits to use the devic.es/dri (#23152)
- Fix typos in vmnet-helper documentation (#22655)
- Remove unnecessary comma in dashboard.md (#23101)
- Fix copy button and code block overlap (#23443)
- Update deployment image tag from v10 to v11 (#23060)
- Update hyperkit to note deprecation, note Apple Silicon hypervisor alternatives (#23027)
- Update roadmap with minikube-machine removed (#22763)
Owners
- Add nirs to minikube approvers (#22936)
- Move spowelljr from emeritus_approvers to reviewers (#23555)
Testing
- Add etcd-extra-args.yaml to template generation (#23556)
- containerd: Skip TestPreload user-image check (#23036)
- Fix flaky TestHelmInstall: use minimum version floor (#23326)
- helm: Improve error handling, type safety, and test clarity (#23348)
- Fix golangci-lint v2.12.2 update & verify exact checksums (#23009)
- golangci-lint: Fix all lint errors with latest version (#23058)
- hack/prow: Update cri-dockerd to v0.4.3 for the none-driver integration script (#22992)
- lint: Change lint level from min to default (#23011)
- lint: Tighten golangci-lint rules and modernize Go concurrency, sorting, and error handling (#23015)
- Skip flaky integration tests to unblock CI (#23137)
- Skip TestAddons/parallel/Registry to unblock development (#23049)
- Skip unrelated workflows for site-only changes (#23133)
- tests: Fix TestISOImage memory and HelmVersion path (#23527)
- virtiofs: Build and test the package only on darwin (#23504)
Build
- infra: Add auto-pause-hook image build & push target for registry.k8s.io in prow (#23021)
- infra: Add storage provisioner image targets for building in staging registry.k8s.io (#22970)
- infra: Isolate
gsutilstate directory to prevent resumable upload conflicts (#23020) - infra: Modularize prow image targets to its own makefile (#23019)
- infra: Fix gh cli installation in prow kic image (#22978)
- infra: Fix kic image build in staging registry.k8s.io (#22973)
- hack/release_notes: Export GITHUB_TOKEN for changelog.go (#23602)
Refactoring
- refactor: Add NodeProvisioner interface with linuxNodeProvisioner (#23319)
- refactor: Replace Split in loops with more efficient SplitSeq (#23033)
- refactor: Use slices.Contains to simplify code (#23221)
- refactor: Use the built-in max/min to simplify the code (#23384)
- Remove redundant variable declarations in for loops (#23113)
Thank you
Thank you to our contributors for this release!
- Abdul Rehman
- Abedegno
- Anders F Björklund
- Bob Sira
- Dean Chen
- Edward Vielmetti
- Felipe Soler
- Hemanth_JS
- Jathavedhan M
- Jonathan Krefting
- Krypt0n123
- Kubernetes Prow Robot
- Masaru Nomura
- Matthew Cengia
- Medya Ghazizadeh
- Nir Soffer
- Nitish Agarwal
- Noam Cohen
- Patrick Hagan
- Rafael Moura Friederick
- Roslaan001
- Ross Alexander
- Samrridh
- Santhosh Bheeman
- Sathvik
- Shriamrut V
- Steven Powell
- Swastik Baranwal
- Todd Liebenschutz-Jones
- Vladyslav Tkachenko
- adisivaprasad
- baohuy1303
- caltechustc
- coderrick
- daixihegu
- dependabot[bot]
- kubernetes-prow[bot]
- minikube-bot
- no
- pengqima
- pli01
- priya11-2
- solunolab
- tanikush
- thc1006
- tim-alt-delete
- wasimat404
- yash2006kr
- zjuzhongwen
- zxuhan7
Thank you to our PR reviewers for this release!
- nirs (537 comments)
- Roslaan001 (75 comments)
- Copilot (57 comments)
- afbjorklund (32 comments)
- medyagh (17 comments)
- bobsira (8 comments)
- nitishagar (4 comments)
- obnoxxx (3 comments)
- abedegno (2 comments)
- HarnageaGabriel (1 comments)
Thank you to our triage members for this release!
- nirs (95 comments)
- afbjorklund (40 comments)
- Roslaan001 (21 comments)
- OchukoWH (14 comments)
- bhavyaBeliever (9 comments)
More info
Installation
See Getting Started
Binary Checksums
darwin-amd64: 12247c653b6f1b58ac7bb634f6d1e31a1d33f7c63a6f99cbdaef160de15d2175
darwin-arm64: 78ad8f2f3b35a81e9c2501b1a65961c1521aa4c76fbbe1b5409053db49e29bcd
linux-amd64: b738496da01be06bbaf80c688f57ce25acd3849fbb518155f3a88e03ef555aa4
linux-arm64: 202f331cb677761c5aec81c58472d16d65707358b9f66226210be3fe3275b1c3
linux-ppc64le: 4ec38cf4b985e1733b3847972228d9114c61e2ec07e3c779f433a06fd614e2aa
linux-s390x: 4a0f4a6d74391ea783f8c5f970347133455b2554baca1e84299855eec376b0d4
windows-amd64.exe: 776386465ded2cf610ae397fe302de32c44d12134b5ce7ce98ab05bd7713b360
ISO Checksums
amd64: e034d26e27e03e37aab43cd3560c40f955a3476cc994e8964585523a1ba86b6a
arm64: eda54e212256fe54220a09a8fa50a43a3a314d927252df872d1c67a3773798bd