Announcing etcd 3.7.0-beta.0
Source: Kubernetes Blog
Announcement
SIG‑Etcd announces the availability of the first beta release of etcd v3.7.0. This new version of the popular distributed database and Kubernetes component includes the long‑requested RangeStream feature, as well as a refactoring and cleanup of multiple legacy components and interfaces. v3.7 delivers improved security, better operational reliability, and an enhanced experience for working with large result sets.
The project needs users to test the beta. You can find v3.7.0‑beta.0 here:
Please try it out and report issues in the etcd repository. This beta also determines the end‑of‑life (EOL) of version 3.4.
RangeStream
In etcd v3.6 and earlier, handling requests that return large result sets was challenging. The client or requesting application had to wait for the full result set, leading to unpredictable latency and memory usage. The RangeStream RPC lets calling applications receive result sets in chunks, reducing latency and making memory usage more predictable.
Much of the work on RangeStream was done by a relatively new contributor, Jeffrey Ying, a software engineer at Google. New contributors can have a substantial impact on etcd development.
“I’ve always been fascinated by database internals, and building RangeStream was a great opportunity to solve a bottleneck we were hitting in production with Kubernetes. It was the perfect opportunity to collaborate across projects and improve the ecosystem as a whole. Jumping into etcd as a new contributor had a bit of a learning curve, but the community is incredibly welcoming. The leads were very receptive to my ideas and helped me iterate quickly, while maintaining the project’s high bar for reliability and code quality,” — Jeffrey
Instructions on how to use RangeStream in gRPC calls and in etcdctl can be found in the etcd documentation. Users should try it out for their own applications.
Removal of v2store
The last vestiges of the etcd v2store have been removed in v3.7, making this the first release that is 100 % on v3store. This includes discovery, bootstrap, v2 requests, and the v2 client. Multiple deprecated experimental flags have also been removed.
These changes may cause breakage for users who have not already updated to v3.6.11. Please report any blockers or issues that cannot be remedied or need better upgrade documentation.
etcd v3.7.0‑beta.0 also includes bbolt v1.5.0 and raft v3.7.0.
3.4 EOL
According to the community support policy, only the latest two minor versions are typically maintained, currently v3.6 and v3.5. Etcd v3.5 will be supported for one year after the v3.7.0 final release.
As mentioned in the extended support announcement for v3.4, etcd v3.4 has been EOL since May 15, 2026. SIG‑etcd may release one more security patch for that version at the end of May, if warranted by patched vulnerabilities. After that, it will cease receiving updates. Users on v3.4 should plan to upgrade their clusters.
Feedback and Future Betas
Reach the etcd contributors with your feedback about v3.7.0‑beta.0 in any of the following places:
- GitHub issues
- #SIG‑etcd Slack channel in Kubernetes Slack
- etcd‑dev mailing list
SIG‑etcd may release additional betas of version v3.7.0 with further refactoring, particularly of the protobuf libraries. Release candidates and the final release are expected to happen through June, possibly into early July.