Question

You manage a highly-available cluster that was bootstrapped with kubeadm using an external etcd topology (etcd runs on dedicated hosts, not as static pods managed by kubeadm). You are upgrading the first control-plane node from v1.29 to v1.30 and run 'kubeadm upgrade apply v1.30.0'. The command reports it will manage component upgrades. What is the correct expectation about etcd during this kubeadm upgrade?

Accepted Answer

kubeadm will not upgrade or manage etcd; you must upgrade the external etcd cluster manually and separately from the kubeadm workflow.

Answer

kubeadm automatically upgrades the external etcd members by connecting to each etcd host over SSH during 'upgrade apply'.

Answer

kubeadm regenerates the etcd static pod manifests on the control-plane node, which restarts the external etcd members.

Answer

kubeadm refuses to run 'upgrade apply' entirely until etcd is converted to a stacked topology.