Update

SimpleK8s

SimpleK8s is delivered as a single file, typically located in /boot/simplek8s/. To update to a new version, you can directly download it from the official download page.

There are two supported ways to manage updates.

Option A — one node, by hand

Use nodectl on the node itself (as root). It fetches the signed release index, stages the kernel you ask for, and re-points the bootloader — the running kernel is never touched until you reboot:

$ # Newest release from the stable channel:
$ nodectl update
staged 202609161935
default: /simplek8s/simplek8s.202609161935.x86-64.efi
purged: []

$ # Reboot into it when ready:
$ reboot

Check first what would happen (nodectl check, nodectl update --dry-run), keep old kernels with --preserve, and roll back with nodectl boot <older-ts> + reboot.

Option B — the whole cluster, automated

Deploy the SimpleK8s Controller: each node stages verified releases on schedule and reboots into them only inside your maintenance windows — or only when you say so via the reboot API. Rollback is one annotation edit (simplek8s.org/next-kernel back to a preserved version) plus reboot.

Upgrade third-party programs

Now is an opportune time to upgrade third-party programs, such as Kubernetes. You can temporarily stop these third-party programs and remove them, as they will redeployed upon the next reboot.

Please be cautious!

If you have custom third-party programs in /usr/local/bin, the next command will remove all of then! Alternatively you can manually remove each one.

$ # The next command will stop all Kubernetes components
$ stop-k8s

$ # Third-party files will be restored from factory on reboot
$ rm /usr/local/bin/* /usr/local/sbin/runc /opt/cni/bin/*

$ # Reboot your system to activate the new version:
$ reboot

And you are done!