CKS: kubeadm config still uses kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta3 — external-etcd clusters break on Kubernetes 1.37+ #14181

problem

CKS writes a kubeadm configuration file into the control node's cloud-init, pinned to the v1beta3 API:

# plugins/integrations/kubernetes-service/src/main/resources/conf/k8s-control-node.yml:245
  - path: /etc/kubernetes/kubeadm-config.yaml
    ...
      apiVersion: kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta3   # :249  (ClusterConfiguration)
      ...
      apiVersion: kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta3   # :260  (InitConfiguration)

kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta3 was deprecated when v1beta4 was introduced in Kubernetes 1.31, with support to be "removed after a minimum of 3 Kubernetes minor releases"
(Kubernetes v1.31: kubeadm v1beta4).
It has since been reported removed as of Kubernetes 1.37
(kubernetes-sigs/image-builder#2151).

Once removed, kubeadm init --config rejects the file and cluster creation fails.

Scope — this affects external-etcd clusters only. That config file is passed to kubeadm on exactly one path:

# k8s-control-node.yml:299-303
if [[ ${EXTERNAL_ETCD_NODES} == true ]]; then
  kubeadm init --config /etc/kubernetes/kubeadm-config.yaml --upload-certs
else
  kubeadm init --token {{ ... }} --token-ttl 0 {{ k8s_control_node.cluster.initargs }} --cri-socket /run/containerd/containerd.sock
fi

So:

grep -rn "kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta" plugins/ systemvm/ returns only those two lines in the whole tree, so the fix is narrowly scoped.

Compounding this: CKS enforces no maximum supported Kubernetes version. addKubernetesSupportedVersion will happily accept 1.37.x, and the failure only surfaces part-way through cluster creation on the control node, which makes it hard to diagnose

versions

• Affects main, 4.20, 4.21, 4.22 — the templated v1beta3 is identical on all of them.
• Triggered by Kubernetes >= 1.37 (the release reported to have removed v1beta3).

The steps to reproduce the bug

1. Build a CKS binaries ISO for Kubernetes 1.37.x (scripts/util/create-kubernetes-binaries-iso.sh).
2. Register it: addKubernetesSupportedVersion semanticversion=1.37.0 url=...
3. Create a Kubernetes cluster with external etcd nodes (etcdnodes=1 or more), which selects the
   kubeadm init --config path.
4. On the control node, kubeadm init fails because /etc/kubernetes/kubeadm-config.yaml declares a
   config API version that kubeadm no longer recognises. Cluster creation does not complete.

A cluster on the same version without external etcd should succeed, since that path passes flags only —
which is a useful way to confirm the diagnosis.

logs

root@test-cks-etcd-control-1a0a97ce958:/opt/bin# ./deploy-kube-system status
error: your configuration file uses an old API spec: "kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta3" (kind: "ClusterConfiguration"). Please use kubeadm v1.36 instead and run 'kubeadm config migrate --old-config old-config-file --new-config new-config-file', which will write the new, similar spec using a newer API version.
To see the stack trace of this error execute with --v=5 or higher
error: your configuration file uses an old API spec: "kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta3" (kind: "ClusterConfiguration"). Please use kubeadm v1.36 instead and run 'kubeadm config migrate --old-config old-config-file --new-config new-config-file', which will write the new, similar spec using a newer API version.
To see the stack trace of this error execute with --v=5 or higher
error: your configuration file uses an old API spec: "kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta3" (kind: "ClusterConfiguration"). Please use kubeadm v1.36 instead and run 'kubeadm config migrate --old-config old-config-file --new-config new-config-file', which will write the new, similar spec using a newer API version.
To see the stack trace of this error execute with --v=5 or higher
Error: kubeadm init failed!

What to do about it?

Migrate the template to kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta4 — but not unconditionally. v1beta4 requires
kubeadm >= 1.31, and CKS still supports much older Kubernetes versions (there are comparisons against
1.15.0 and 1.16.0 in KubernetesClusterUpgradeWorker.java:75 and
KubernetesClusterService.MIN_KUBERNETES_VERSION_HA_SUPPORT), with versions registered by the operator.
A straight bump would break clusters on anything below 1.31.