Features Summary#
The feature summary offers a high-level view of MKE 4 product functionality.
| Feature | Detail | Learn more |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | MKE 4 uses Dex for authentication, which serves as a proxy between MKE 4 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 4. |
Configure OIDC service for MKE, Configure SAML service for MKE, Configure LDAP service for MKE 4 |
| Authorization | MKE 4 uses standard Kubernetes RBAC authorization. | Authorization, RBAC Upgrades |
| Cluster backup | MKE 4 supports backup and restore operations. | Backup. |
| Container Network Interface | MKE 4 supports Calico OSS (operating in KDD mode) as the CNI for cluster networking. | Network configuration |
| CoreDNS Lameduck | MKE 4 supports the use of lameduck mode for CoreDNS. | CoreDNS Lameduck: Configuration |
| GPU Feature Discovery | MKE 4 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, Gateway API, Kubernetes Ingress, TCP and UDP services |
| Kubernetes | MKE 4 deploys Kubernetes 1.32. | Kubernetes components |
| Licensing | MKE 4 requires the use of a license for lawful use. | Licensing MKE 4 |
| Load balancing | MKE 4 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 4 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: cAdvisor |
| MKE 4 CLI (mkectl) | The MKE 4 CLI tool, mkectl, can be installed automatically using an install.sh script, or it can be installed manually. | Install the MKE 4 CLI (mkectl) |
| MKE 4 Dashboard | MKE 4 provides a web-based user interface that enables the management of Kubernetes resources in an MKE-managed cluster. | MKE 4 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) |
| NodeLocalDNS | NodeLocalDNS runs a local DNS caching agent on each node in the MKE 4 cluster, improving performance by caching DNS responses locally and reducing latency, compared to resolving external DNS records through a centralized CoreDNS service. | NodeLocalDNS |
| Policy Controller | MKE 4 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 4 can be generated directly from the command line. | Create a support bundle |
| Telemetry | MKE 4 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 4 CLI, Enable telemetry through the MKE 4 web UI |
| Control Plane Load Balancer (CPLB) | The built-in Control Plan Load Balancer provides a virtual IP address (VIP) that serves as a stable endpoint for the MKE 4 manager nodes, ensuring high availability across control plane nodes. When enabled, CPLB automatically manages traffic distribution so that clients can reach MKE even if individual control plane nodes become unavailable. | Control Plane Load Balancer |
| Air gap (offline installation) | MKE 4 can be deployed in an air-gapped environment. | Offline Installation, Upgrade from MKE 3 offline |
| Networking: Multus | Multus CNI support | Multus |
| Child clusters | MKE 4.1.1, equipped with Mirantis k0rdent Enterprise 1.1.0 by default, enables the deployment of MKE 4 child clusters from an MKE 4 mothership cluster. | Child clusters |
| Custom CA certificates | MKE 4 supports custom registries with TLS certificates from private, self-signed Certificate Authorities (CAs). | TLS certificates |
| SSH bastion jump host | MKE 4 supports access to cluster nodes through an SSH bastion jump host. | Set up SSH bastion host |
| Restore | MKE 4 offers a restore process that involves the bootstrapping of a new cluster, creation of a single node cluster from a backup, and the subsequent joining of manager and worker nodes to that new cluster. host. | Restore |