0.7

2026-08-11 · Full Changelog

Major refactoring

Release 0.7.0 is a major refactoring of the c9s project. The main changes in one sentence are:

• c9s now has its own documentation site at c9s.run.
• Node and Link are now the primary c9s APIs.
• Topology is now a compatibility layer and emits Node and Link resources.
• LauncherProfile is a resource that carries Kubernetes and launcher properties.
• group is now c9s.run instead of clabernetes.containerlab.dev.
• clabverter has not been looked at in details and can experience issues, as the plan is to add --runtime c9s to the containerlab binary instead and sunset clabverter.
• repo has moved to github.com/clabernetes/clabernetes as well as the chart org in Artifact Hub.

Node and Link first

Node and Link are now the primary c9s APIs. A Node describes one containerlab network node, a Link describes one point-to-point connection, and a reusable LauncherProfile carries Kubernetes and launcher policy.

The Topology resource remains available as a convenient compatibility layer. Existing containerlab topology definitions are compiled into independently reconciled Nodes, Links, and LauncherProfiles, so existing Topology manifests continue to work.

This removes the single, ever-growing Topology object from the runtime path. Large labs can now manage each node and link independently, while status and controller allocations stay bounded to the resource they describe.

Connectivity is configured per Link, so VXLAN and slurpeeth links can coexist in one lab. Kubernetes 1.31 or newer is required for the endpoint field selectors used by the Link controller.

The legacy Connectivity resource has been removed; each Link now owns its connectivity choice, validation, endpoint bindings, and tunnel allocation. Topology status is reduced to bounded resource counts and conditions instead of growing per-node maps.

API group renamed to c9s.run

All c9s custom resources now use:

apiVersion: c9s.run/v1alpha1

The previous clabernetes.containerlab.dev group is not migrated automatically. The installer detects an incompatible API group and refuses a partial upgrade instead of leaving mixed CRDs in the cluster.

The default installation namespace is now c9s, and c9s-owned Kubernetes labels use the c9s.run/ prefix.

Curated Node API and containerlab 0.78

The Node spec now exposes only the containerlab fields that a launcher can realize. Unknown and removed fields are rejected when a Node is applied instead of being silently accepted.

Native containerlab definitions inside a Topology remain permissive: unsupported fields are omitted with a warning that names the field and source line. Malformed definitions and invalid values still fail compilation.

The launcher now ships containerlab 0.78.0. The Node API adds devices, cap-add, privileged, tmpfs, security-opts, shm-size, and suppress-startup-config, plus additional certificate options.

Other behavior changes:

• ports accepts destination ports only, such as 22/tcp or 5201/udp;
• node labels from Topology definitions become Kubernetes labels on the generated Node, Deployment, and pods; and
• network-mode is limited to the supported container:<primary> grouping form.

HTTP(S) proxy support

Launcher pods can now pull images through corporate HTTP(S) proxies. Proxy variables supplied through launcher extraEnv are rendered into Docker daemon configuration, and Kubernetes API addresses are added to NO_PROXY.

make try-c9s detects host proxy variables automatically, extends NO_PROXY with the KinD service and pod networks, and retries transient tool download failures. A user-provided Docker daemon configuration still takes precedence.

Installation workflows

The repository now provides one installation flow for existing clusters and the disposable quickstart:

make install
make try-c9s

Both commands use the same VERSION selector for the latest stable release, an exact release, the mutable main channel, a commit-scoped development build, or a local checkout. make ls-releases lists installable chart artifacts.

Before changing a cluster, the installer validates the Kubernetes context, permissions, selected OCI chart, and API-group compatibility. It then verifies the Helm release, manager and launcher images, rollout, and embedded version.

Local KinD installs build and load immutable checkout-tagged images. Repeated installs reuse matching images, while C9S_LOCAL_REBUILD=1 forces a rebuild. Manual development releases publish commit-scoped 0.0.0-<short-sha> charts and images without creating a GitHub Release.

New documentation site

The documentation has moved into a Fumadocs site hosted at c9s.run. Pull requests receive isolated preview deployments, main has a rolling preview, and production docs are deployed only after release validation and image builds succeed.

The site includes an interactive CRD viewer generated from the shipped OpenAPI schema, refreshed installation and quickstart guides, and diagrams for the c9s architecture and sample lab.

Removed KNE and web UI support

Topology definitions now accept containerlab syntax only; the KNE topology compiler has been removed. The bundled c9s web UI and its Helm values, Deployment, Service, and Ingress have also been removed.

Resources generated from a Topology now use Node names directly instead of topology-prefixed names. spec.naming remains accepted for manifest compatibility but no longer changes generated resource names. Clients that consumed the old per-node Topology status maps must use Node and Link status instead.

Repository and image locations

The project repository and published artifacts have moved from the srl-labs organization to clabernetes. Release images and the OCI Helm chart now use the ghcr.io/clabernetes/clabernetes namespace, and chart metadata is available on Artifact Hub.

Development and CI

• make dev supports a project-managed in-cluster registry for remote clusters and an explicit external-registry mode. Development resources default to the separate c9s-dev namespace.
• Pull requests build amd64 test images in parallel with end-to-end tests; main and release image publication remains gated by the full test suite.
• Manager and launcher Docker build contexts were reduced and release image builds were streamlined, including corrected certificate ownership for OpenShift-compatible launcher images.
• GitHub Actions checkout and setup-go were updated to version 7.

Patches

0.7.1

• Updated x/crypto and x/net dependencies to fix security vulnerabilities.
• Fixed cloudflare redirects for trailing slashes.