Cockpit Release Notes
This log tracks updates, new features, and bug fixes added to the Cockpit dashboard.
Version 3.0.1 (July 2026)
Adds warm migration support for Cockpit-managed hosts.
New Features:
- Warm migration target: A Cockpit-managed host can now be the destination for a live, minimal-downtime migration of a running VM — the guest stays online during the transfer. Together with Condensa and Vapor, this brings running Proxmox VMs into Awanio.
Version 3.0.0 (July 2026)
A major release focused on fleet-scale automation and a hardened, fail-closed security posture. It adds Kubernetes cluster provisioning, automated load balancing and failover (DRS/HA), clustered shared storage, and one-click import from other virtualization platforms.
Breaking change — action required
This release fails closed: Cockpit will not start or authenticate without a configured signing secret, and every change now goes through default-deny permission checks. Set your JWT secret and review role assignments before upgrading.
New Features:
- Kubernetes Provisioner: Build and manage whole Kubernetes clusters from Cockpit. Nodes are placed with awareness of each host's spare capacity, scaled up or down safely (with automatic drain and cordon), and given either fixed (static) or automatic (DHCP) addresses. Cluster bootstrap now runs through the guest agent instead of SSH, and node VMs are protected from accidental deletion.
- Automatic Load Balancing & Failover (DRS/HA): Cockpit can keep VMs and their affinity rules balanced across hosts, honor per-VM placement overrides, and follow VMs as they move between hosts.
- Clustered Shared Storage (OCFS2): A guided Shared Group workflow sets up and operates an O2CB cluster — heartbeat modes, maintenance mode with safety pre-checks, and cross-host drift detection — so several hosts can safely share the same datastore. Large datastore builds now run in the background with progress in the Tasks panel.
- Import from Other Platforms: Warm and cold disk imports (VDDK) are surfaced in the Tasks panel, with Veeam and Vinchin integration through the oVirt compatibility shim.
- Differential Backups: Choose a parent backup to build space-efficient differential chains, with storage-pool targeting.
- Signed In-Place Updates: Cockpit can update its own binary from a signed release channel.
Enhancements:
- Consistent VM deletion: Deleting a VM from the inventory tree now behaves exactly like the VM tab — it powers off first when needed, optionally removes disks, and actually deletes the VM on the host.
- Friendlier error handling: Blocking browser pop-ups have been replaced with inline messages and non-blocking toast notifications throughout inventory management.
- Identity-preserving migration: When a VM moves hosts, its inventory record (and the permissions attached to it) is relocated in place instead of deleted and recreated. "Undefine source" is the default, with a clear risk acknowledgement.
- Safer VM specs: CPU topology is validated against the maximum vCPU count, and disk sizing is available when cloning.
- Lighter footprint: Per-VM metric updates are scoped to reduce load, and host heartbeats retry faster to avoid lease expiry.
Security:
- Fail-closed authentication with algorithm pinning, authenticated console sessions, and CORS/path hardening.
- Default-deny permissions that correctly honor object-scoped (inherited) admin grants.
- Encrypted control channel between Cockpit and hosts with certificate pinning, plus rate-limiting on login endpoints.
- Password policy enforcement and self-service password change.
- Kubernetes join-token seed files are removed from storage after bootstrap.
Bug Fixes:
- Permission checks now honor object-scoped admin grants.
- Cloud-init seed removal is reboot-safe, and Kubernetes nodes boot reliably on physical hardware.
- Kubernetes cluster view shows human-readable network names.
- OCFS2 cluster reuse retries robustly with an extended timeout.
- Datastore wizard preserves storage fields and filters LUN eligibility correctly.
- VM backups resolve the correct disk identity, with longer timeouts for large jobs.
Version 1.2.0 (May 2026)
New Features:
- Shared Storage Support (Clustered Storage): You can now connect your servers to shared network hard drives (using NFS, iSCSI, or Fibre Channel). This allows multiple physical servers to read and write to the same storage space.
- Shared File Systems (OCFS2 & o2cb): Added tools to configure OCFS2 (Oracle Cluster File System). This acts like a shared Google Doc, allowing multiple servers to edit files on the same hard drive at the same time without overwriting each other's data.
- Smart Migration Checks: Cockpit now automatically detects if a virtual machine's disk is on a shared network drive. If it is, Cockpit speeds up the live migration process by only copying the VM's active memory, skipping the long disk-copy phase.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed intermittent security certificate errors that occurred when migrating VMs between servers.
- Optimized the background host claimant system to reduce database load.
Version 1.1.0 (March 2026)
New Features:
- Single Sign-On (SSO): Added support for logging into Cockpit using your company's central account systems, including Active Directory (AD), LDAP, and SAML 2.0 (like Okta or Azure AD). You can also configure passwordless login for Windows computers (Kerberos).
- High Availability Database: Validated that Cockpit runs smoothly with Patroni PostgreSQL databases. This ensures that if your main database server crashes, a backup database takes over instantly without interrupting Cockpit.
- Centralized Log Archiving: Added support for streaming Cockpit's audit logs to external security monitoring systems (using the standard RFC 5424 Syslog format).
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a memory leak in the WebSocket Event Hub that occurred when users closed their browser tabs quickly.