Migrate to registry.k8s.io Before k8s.gcr.io Deprecation

Don’t worry, you still have a few days left!

But if you don’t act quickly, you might find yourself on the wrong side of history.

On Monday March 20th, k8s.gcr.io will redirect to the new registry.k8s.io registry, followed by a complete deprecation of k8s.gcr.io If your k8s environments are restricted or use old libraries for image pulling, you might encounter applications failures!

Fortunately, there is an easy solution that can help DevOps teams keep their applications safe and running smoothly during this transition period - groundcover! 

‍Thankfully, groundcover has you covered with its free universal mapping tool that can help you make sure all of your workloads are prepared for this change ASAP! 

How Can groundcover Help?

groundcover is here to save the day!

Fortunately, there is a way to prepare ahead of time and stay ahead of any potential issues caused by this redirection: groundcover’s free service allows you to map all workloads that utilize k8s.gcr.io so that you can take preventative action now before any problems occur when it redirects to registry k8s io next week on March 20th.

With groundcover's automated tooling and unique mapping capabilities, you can easily pinpoint exactly which images need to be migrated over before the switch takes place in order to avoid any downtime or disruptions in service post-redirection date – giving you peace of mind knowing your applications are safe!   

Are you up to date on the latest Kubernetes changes that are happening?

As part of Google Cloud Platform’s (GCP) ongoing commitment to modernizing their public cloud infrastructure, they have decided to redirect k8s.gcr.io to the new registry.k8s.io registry on Monday March 20th and completely deprecate the URL shortly after that date.

The Kubernetes community repo URL is changing, and if your monitoring solution isn't prepared for this transition then your infra may be at risk. This repo contains a lot of OSS repos that many third parties use, for example kube-state-metrics which is used by lens. Once applied (Monday next week), users who haven't migrated to use the new repo will encounter errors such as ImagePullBack and several more

What Does This Redirection Mean? 

The k8s gcr io redirection means that any applications or services which rely on images from k8s gcr io will no longer work or be recognized after March 20th unless they are migrated over to registry k8s io in time for the switchover date.

It is important to note that this affects not only Google Cloud Platform (GCP) users, but also those who use other cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, etc., as well as on-premise users who have restricted access or rely on older libraries for image pulling operations, which may be incompatible with the new platform and cause further disruption down the line if not addressed quickly enough. 

Why Is It Important? 

If your Kubernetes environments are restricted or use old libraries for image pulling, then this redirection could cause some major problems for you if you aren’t prepared in advance!

Applications might start failing because they won’t be able to pull images from the old location anymore once it is redirected, leading to costly downtime and other issues that could have been avoided if proper preparation had been done ahead of time. 

According to the community announcement - What you need to know about this change:

• If you run in a restricted environment, and apply strict domain name or IP address access policies limited to k8s.gcr.io, the image pulls will not function after k8s.gcr.io starts redirecting to the new registry. 
• A small subset of non-standard clients do not handle HTTP redirects by image registries, and will need to be pointed directly at registry.k8s.io.
• The redirect is a stopgap to assist users in making the switch. The deprecated k8s.gcr.io registry will be phased out at some point. Please update your manifests as soon as possible to point to registry.k8s.io.
• If you host your own image registry, you can copy images you need there as well to reduce traffic to community owned registries.

I still have questions, where should I go?

• groundcover slack
• groundcover FAQs
• groundcover Docs

Conclusion

When it comes time for k8s.gcr.io redirection on March 20th, don't get caught off guard by unexpected applications failures due to restrictions or outdated libraries used for image pulling! Be proactive and make sure all of your workloads are prepared in advance with groundcover's free universal mapping tool so that no matter what comes your way, you're ready and waiting!

Don't wait until it's too late - get started today!