# Karmada v1.17.6

> Orchestration & Management · 2026-08-31

A cumulative maintenance release that adds workload affinity and encryption-at-rest capabilities, improves controller performance and correctness, and updates dependencies, images, and Helm support. It also removes deprecated interfaces and changes some defaults.

## Check if affected
- **[breaking]** The `GroupByLabelKey` setting in `WorkloadAffinity`
  - Applies if you configure `WorkloadAffinity` and `GroupByLabelKey`.
  - `karmada-webhook` now disallows using the same `GroupByLabelKey` for `affinity` and `antiAffinity` in `WorkloadAffinity`.
- **[breaking]** The `--etcd-init-image` flag
  - Applies if you use `--etcd-init-image`.
  - `karmadactl` has removed the deprecated `--etcd-init-image` flag from the `init` command.
- **[breaking]** Updated default `kube-apiserver`, `kube-controller-manager`, and `ETCD` images
  - Applies if you depend on `kube-apiserver`, `kube-controller-manager`, or `ETCD`.
  - The default `kube-apiserver` and `kube-controller-manager` images are updated from v1.34.1 to v1.35.2. The default `ETCD` image is updated from 3.6.0-0 to 3.6.6-0.
- **[breaking]** The `ControllerPriorityQueue` feature
  - Applies if you enable `ControllerPriorityQueue`.
  - The `ControllerPriorityQueue` feature is promoted to beta and enabled by default.

## Plan ahead
- **[deprecated]** The `--cluster-lease-duration` and `--cluster-lease-renew-interval-fraction` flags
  - Applies if you use `--cluster-lease-duration` or `--cluster-lease-renew-interval-fraction`.
  - deprecated since v1.17.0 · removal date not announced
  - `karmada-controller-manager` deprecates the flags `--cluster-lease-duration` and `--cluster-lease-renew-interval-fraction`.
- **[deprecated]** The `Etcd.Local.InitImage` configuration field
  - deprecated since v1.17.0 · removal date not announced
  - `karmadactl` deprecates `Etcd.Local.InitImage` in `Karmada Init Configuration`.
- **[deprecated]** The `--cluster-lease-duration` flag
  - Applies if you use `--cluster-lease-duration`.
  - removal date not announced
  - The flag `--cluster-lease-duration` is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
- **[deprecated]** The `--cluster-lease-renew-interval-fraction` flag
  - Applies if you use `--cluster-lease-renew-interval-fraction`.
  - removal date not announced
  - The flag `--cluster-lease-renew-interval-fraction` is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
- **[deprecated]** The `Etcd.Local.InitImage` configuration field
  - Applies if you configure `Etcd.Local.InitImage`.
  - removal date not announced
  - `Etcd.Local.InitImage` in `Karmada Init Configuration` is deprecated and will be removed in a future version.

## Other recorded changes
- 83 (defect_corrected 41, value_changed 21, added 19, default_changed 1, constraint_changed 1)

[Full analysis](https://ratatosk.io/en/releases/karmada/v1.17.6)

[Original release notes](https://github.com/karmada-io/karmada/releases/tag/v1.17.6)