Features Summary
The feature summary offers a high-level view of MKE 4k product functionality, as well as information on features that Mirantis is working to include in future releases of of the software.
Available features
Features that are available in MKE 4k are detailed in the following table:
| Feature | Detail | Learn more |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | MKE 4k uses Dex for authentication, which serves as a proxy between MKE 4k clusters and authentication providers. Dex supports the following authentication protocols: * Basic authentication * OIDC * SAML * LDAP SCIM, which is supported in MKE 3, is not supported in MKE 4k. | Configure OIDC service for MKE, Configure SAML service for MKE, Configure LDAP service for MKE 4k |
| Authorization | MKE 4k uses standard Kubernetes RBAC authorization. | RBAC Migrations |
| Backup and restore | MKE 4k supports backup and restoration of cluster data through the use of the Velero add-on. System backup is enabled by default. | Back up using an external storage provider, Back up with an in-cluster storage provider |
| Cloud providers | MKE 4k directly supports the use of AWS for managed cloud service provision. Different cloud service providers can be put to use, though doing so requires manual configuration. | Cloud providers: Configuration |
| Container Network Interface | MKE 4k supports Calico OSS (operating in KDD mode) as the CNI for cluster networking. | Network configuration |
| CoreDNS Lameduck | MKE 4k supports the use of lameduck mode for CoreDNS. | CoreDNS Lameduck: Configuration |
| GPU Feature Discovery | MKE 4k supports running workloads on NVIDIA GPU nodes and GPU node discovery. NVIDIA MIG is not supported. | NVIDIA GPU Workloads |
| Ingress | Ingress controllers abstract the complexity of Kubernetes application traffic routing and provide a bridge between Kubernetes services and external ones. | Ingress controller, TCP and UDP services |
| Kubernetes | MKE 4k deploys Kubernetes 1.32. | Kubernetes components |
| Licensing | MKE 4k requires the use of a license for lawful use. | Licensing MKE 4k |
| Load balancing | MKE 4k supports the use of MetalLB to create Load Balancer services, offering such features as address allocation and external announcement. | MetalLB load balancer |
| Logging, Monitoring and Alerting | MKE 4k monitoring setup is based on the kube-prometheus-stack, which offers a comprehensive solution for collecting, storing, and visualizing metrics. | Monitoring tool: Prometheus, Monitoring tool: Grafana, Monitoring tool: cAdvisor, Monitoring tool: OpsCare (Under development) |
| MKE 4k CLI | The MKE 4k CLI tool, mkectl is the MKE 4k CLI tool. It can be installed automatically using an install.sh script, or it can be done manually. | Install the MKE 4k CLI |
| MKE 4k Dashboard | MKE 4k provides a web-based user interface that enables the management of Kubernetes resources in an MKE-managed cluster. | MKE 4k Dashboard |
| Node Feature Discovery (NFD) | Node Feature Discovery (NFD) detects the hardware features that are available on each node in a Kubernetes cluster, and advertises the detected features through node labels. | Node Feature Discovery: Configuration (NFD) |
| Policy Controller | MKE 4k allows installation of third-party policy controllers for Kubernetes. Currently, OPA Gatekeeper is the only supported policy controller. | OPA Gatekeeper |
| Support Bundle | Support bundles for MKE 4k can be generated directly from the command line. | Create a support bundle |
| Telemetry | MKE 4k can be set to automatically record and transmit data to Mirantis through an encrypted channel, for monitoring and analysis purposes. | Enable telemetry through the MKE 4k CLI, Enable telemetry through the MKE 4k web UI |
Features under development
New features that Mirantis plans to introduce in upcoming MKE 4k releases include:
- Additional cloud providers
- Custom admission controllers: OPA Gatekeeper or Kyverno EE or CE only
- Life Cycle Management for components
- Networking: Cillium
- Offline Bundle
- Scheduled backups
- STIG
In addition, Mirantis is working to integrate various key MKE 3 features into MKE 4k, including:
- Two-factor authentication (2FA)
- Audit logging
- etcd enhancements
- CIS Benchmarks
- Client bundle
- Image pruning
- KMS/Vault
- Networking: Multus
- Node Local DNS
- OpsCare Plus
- Storage (CSI)
- Windows function
Unsupported features
Mirantis does not support the following functions:
- Networking: IPVS, eBPF, Unmanaged CNI
- Profiling on Kubernetes and MKE 4k components
- Custom feedback UI
- Account Lockout
- User session properties
- gMSA
- SCIM
- Swarm
- DCT (Docker Content Trust)
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