Percona Operator for MySQL based on Percona XtraDB Cluster 1.18.0 (2025-08-14)¶

Release Highlights¶

This release of Percona Operator for MySQL based on Percona XtraDB Cluster includes the following new features and improvements:

PMM3 support¶

The Operator is natively integrated with PMM 3 , enabling you to monitor the health and performance of your Percona Distribution for MySQL deployment and at the same time enjoy enhanced performance, new features, and improved security that PMM 3 provides.

Note that the Operator supports both PMM2 and PMM3. The decision on what PMM version is used depends on the authentication method you provide in the Operator configuration: PMM2 uses API keys while PMM3 uses service account token. If the Operator configuration contains both authentication methods with non-empty values, PMM3 takes the priority.

To use PMM, ensure that the PMM client image is compatible with the PMM Server version. Check Percona certified images for the correct client image.

For how to configure monitoring with PMM, see the documentation.

Improved monitoring for clusters in multi-region or multi-namespace deployments in PMM¶

Now you can define a custom name for your clusters deployed in different data centers. This name helps Percona Management and Monitoring (PMM) Server to correctly recognize clusters as connected and monitor them as one deployment. Similarly, PMM Server identifies clusters deployed with the same names in different namespaces as separate ones and correctly displays performance metrics for you on dashboards.

To assign a custom name, define this configuration in the Custom Resource manifest for your cluster:

spec:
  pmm:
    customClusterName: testClusterName

More resilient database restores without matching user Secrets¶

You no longer need matching user Secrets between your backup and your target cluster to perform a restore. The Operator now has a post-restore step that changes user passwords in the restored database to the ones from the local Secret. Also, it creates missing system users and adds missing grants.

This flow is the same regardless of whether you restore to the same cluster or to a completely new one.

The removal of this major roadblock to have a Secret for restores makes your disaster recovery process smoother and more reliable. This enhancement makes managing databases on Kubernetes more robust and operator-friendly.

Improved backup retention for streamlined management of scheduled backups in cloud storage¶

A new backup retention configuration gives you more control over how backups are managed in storage and retained in Kubernetes.

With the deleteFromStorage flag , you can disable automatic deletion from AWS S3 or Azure Blob storage and instead rely on native cloud lifecycle policies. This makes backup cleanup more efficient and better aligned with flexible storage strategies.

The legacy keep option is now deprecated and mapped to the new retention block for compatibility. We encourage you to start using the backup.schedule.retention configuration:

schedule:
  - name: "sat-night-backup"
    schedule: "0 0 * * 6"
    retention:
      count: 3
      type: count
      deleteFromStorage: true
    storageName: s3-us-west

Note that if you have both backup.schedule.keep and backup.schedule.retention defined, the backup.schedule.retention takes precedence.

Added labels to identify the version of the Operator¶

Custom Resource Definition (CRD) is compatible with the last three Operator versions. To know which Operator version is attached to it, we’ve added labels to all Custom Resource Definitions. The labels help you identify the current Operator version and decide if you need to update the CRD. To view the labels, run: kubectl get crd perconaxtradbclusters.pxc.percona.com --show-labels.

Cross-site replication is now supported for Percona XtraDB Cluster 8.4¶

Cross-site replication is now available with Percona XtraDB Cluster 8.4.x, lifting one of the limitations in the Operator for this database version. This enhancement marks a significant step toward general availability of Percona XtraDB Cluster 8.4 in the Operator by enabling multi-site deployments and improving resilience across distributed environments.

Deprecation, Rename and Removal¶

The pxc.expose.loadBalancerIP, haproxy.exposePrimary.loadBalancerIP, haproxy.exposeReplicas.loadBalancerIP and proxysql.expose.loadBalancerIP keys are deprecated. The loadBalancerIP field is also deprecated upstream in Kubernetes due to its inconsistent behavior across cloud providers and lack of dual-stack support. As a result, its usage is strongly discouraged.

We recommend using cloud provider-specific annotations instead, as they offer more predictable and portable behavior for managing load balancer IP assignments.

The pxc.expose.loadBalancerIP, haproxy.exposePrimary.loadBalancerIP, haproxy.exposeReplicas.loadBalancerIP and proxysql.expose.loadBalancerIP keys are scheduled for removal in future releases.

The backup.schedule.keep field is deprecated and will be removed after release 1.21.0. We recommend using the backup.schedule.retention instead as follows:

schedule:
  - name: "sat-night-backup"
    schedule: "0 0 ** 6"
    retention:
      count: 3
      type: count
      deleteFromStorage: true
    storageName: s3-us-west

New repositories for Percona XtraBackup and Logcollector

Now the Operator uses the official Percona Docker images for the percona-xtrabackup and logcollector components. Pay attention to the new image repositories when you upgrade the Operator and the database. Check the Percona certified images for exact image names.

Changes for Helm charts:
PMM3 is now the default. To keep using PMM2, set the pmm.tag: 2.44.1
If you install or upgrade the Operator with default manifests using Helm charts on Openshift 4.19, you must use the docker.io registry prefix to guarantee successful download from the DockerHub percona-xtradb-cluster repository. Read the Considerations for using OpenShift 4.19 section for more information.

Known limitations¶

Considerations for using OpenShift 4.19¶

Starting with OpenShift 4.19, the way images with not fully qualified names are pulled has changed for repositories that share the same repository name on DockerHub and Red Hat Marketplace. By default the tags are pulled from Red Hat Marketplace. Specifying not fully qualified image names may result in the ImagePullBackOff error.

OLM installation: Images are provided with the fully qualified names and are pulled from the Red Hat Marketplace/DockerHub registry.
Manual install/update with default manifests: Images must use the docker.io registry prefix to guarantee successful download from the Dockerhub percona-xtradb-cluster repository.

For manual installation or update, follow the instructions below:

Install on OpenShift 4.19Update the Operator to 1.18.0

Clone the Operator repository:

$ git clone -b v1.18.0 https://github.com/percona/percona-xtradb-cluster-operator
$ cd percona-xtradb-cluster-operator

Edit the deploy/bundle.yaml file.
- Locate the Deployment custom resource for the Operator.
- Update the spec.image field to
```
docker.io/percona/percona-xtradb-cluster-operator:1.18.0
```

Apply the updated deploy/bundle.yaml file

$ oc apply --server-side -f deploy/bundle.yaml

Install Percona XtraDB Cluster:
```
$ oc create -f deploy/secrets.yaml
```

Check all clusters managed by the Operator to see if initContainer.image is set.
- If defined: skip the next step.
- If undefined: proceed to step 2.

Apply a patch to the clusters with undefined initContainer.image to define this image with the docker.io registry in the image path:

$ kubectl patch pxc cluster1 --type=merge --patch '{
  "spec": {
    "initcontainer": {
      "image": "docker.io/percona/percona-xtradb-cluster-operator:1.17.0"
    }
  }
}'

Important! This command triggers the restart of your clusters. Wait till they restart and report the Ready status

Update the Operator deployment and specify the docker.io registry name in the image path:

$ kubectl patch deployment percona-xtradb-cluster-operator \
-p'{"spec":{"template":{"spec":{"containers":[{"name":"percona-xtradb-cluster-operator","image":"docker.io/percona/percona-xtradb-cluster-operator:1.18.0"}]}}}}'

Update the Custom Resource version and the database cluster. Specify the initContainer image with the docker.io registry name in the path. Pay attention to the changed repositories for PXB and logcollector:

$ kubectl patch pxc cluster1 --type=merge --patch '{
  "spec": {
    "crVersion": "1.18.0",
    "initContainer": "docker.io/percona/percona-xtradb-cluster-operator:1.18.0",
    "pxc":{ "image": "docker.io/percona/percona-xtradb-cluster:8.0.42-33.1" },
    "proxysql": { "image": "docker.io/percona/proxysql2:2.7.3" },
    "haproxy":  { "image": "docker.io/percona/haproxy:2.8.15" },
    "backup":   { "image": "docker.io/percona/percona-xtrabackup:8.0.35-34.1" },
    "logcollector": { "image": "docker.io/percona/fluentbit:4.0.1" },
    "pmm":      { "image": "docker.io/percona/pmm-client:2.44.1-1" }
       }}'
  }
}'

Changleog¶

New Features¶

K8SPXC-1284 - Add the ability to configure protocol for peer-list DNS SRV lookups
K8SPXC-1599 - Allowed setting loadBalancerClass service type and using a custom implementation of a load balancer rather than the cloud provider default one

Improvements¶

K8SPXC-1375 - Added a new retention configuration to allow users to delegate backup cleanup to cloud lifecycle policies (Thank you user Tristan for reporting this issue)
K8SPXC-1376 - Added the ability to restore from backup without a matching Secret resource
K8SPXC-1399 - Added a documentation how to set up a disaster recovery system and transfer workloads between sites
K8SPXC-1415 - Updated the percona-xtrabackup image to use the official percona-xtrabackup Docker image
K8SPXC-1430 - Improved handling of autogenerated certificates depending on the delete-ssl finalizer configuration
K8SPXC-1448, K8SPXC-1449 - Improved the pvc-resize test by using a custom storage class for EKS, reducing errors and improving the quota handling during resize
K8SPXC-1450 - Improved PVC resizing behavior when reducing the storage size by reverting the values when the quota is reached
K8SPXC-1472 - Deprecated the loadBalancerIP field due to its deprecation upstream
K8SPXC-1513 - Added PXC 8.4 support for version service
K8SPXC-1529 - Added support for cross-site replication with MySQL 8.4.0 by adding the use of authentication_policy instead of default_authentication_plugin
K8SPXC-1553 - Added support for PMM v3
K8SPXC-1560 - Added the warning about CRDs not being upgraded automatically after helm upgrade to the output
K8SPXC-1566 - Improved reconciliation of replicationChannels without proxy Pods by starting the database Pod bypassing the proxy (Thank you Justin Reasoner for contributing to this issue)
K8SPXC-1569 - Added Labels for Custom Resource Definitions (CRD) to identify the Operator version attached to them
K8SPXC-1597 - Improve the scheduled backups behavior for a cluster in an unhealthy state by postponing the job until the cluster reports the healthy status
K8SPXC-1605 - Introduced Azure CLI for checking if backup objects/folders exist in Azure storage
K8SPXC-1612 - Added the imagePullSecrets for PMM image
K8SPXC-1615 - Added the ability to define a custom cluster name for pmm-admin component
K8SPXC-1624 - Deleted deprecated finalizers code
K8SPXC-1669 - Improve the backup flow by generating a default endpoint URL for a storage from a region if it is not provided (Thank you Bernard Grymonpon for reporting this issue)
K8SPXC-1677 - Document the changed behavior with pulling images for default manifests on OpenShift 4.19 and update install and update instructions

Bugs Fixed¶

K8SPXC-1312 - Fixed the issue with labels not being updated automatically for point-in-time recovery deployment upon Custom Resource changes
K8SPXC-1347 - Fixed the issue with point-in-time recovery failing due to TLS configuration mismatch between the server and the point-in-time recovery job by configuring it to use TLS if is required by the server.
K8SPXC-1382 - Fixed the issue with backup failing on AWS if using IAM profile without credentialsSecret by using credentialsSecret only when explicitly specified and relying on IAM roles instead (Thank you Itiel Olenick for reporting this issue)
K8SPXC-1541 - Fixed Telemetry module to to consider both empty string “” and comma separated namespaces in cluster-wide mode
K8SPXC-1548 Fixed the issue with deleting old backups on Google Cloud Storage by url-decoding the object path before deleting it (Thank you Mateusz Gruszkiewicz for reporting this issue)
K8SPXC-1631 - Fixed the issue with the Operator restarting pod-0 after the cluster is ready. The issue is caused by ConfigMap and StatefulSet being created too close to each other and Kubernetes API can’t return the newly created ConfigMap before creating the StatefulSet. The issue is fixed by reconciling the StatefulSet after the reconciliation of ConfigMap is completed.
K8SPXC-1664 - Fixed the use of the proper script to check PXC nodes when adding them by HAProxy

Supported Software¶

The Operator was developed and tested with the following software:

Percona XtraDB Cluster versions 8.4.5-5.1 (Tech preview), 8.0.42-33.1, and 5.7.44-31.65
Percona XtraBackup versions 8.4.0-3, 8.0.35-34.1, and 2.4.29
HAProxy 2.8.15-1
ProxySQL 2.7.3
LogCollector based on fluent-bit 4.0.1
PMM Client 2.44.1 and 3.3.1

Other options may also work but have not been tested.

Supported Platforms¶

Percona Operators are designed for compatibility with all CNCF-certified Kubernetes distributions. Our release process includes targeted testing and validation on major cloud provider platforms and OpenShift, as detailed below for Operator version 1.16.0:

Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) 1.30 - 1.33
Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (EKS) 1.30 - 1.33
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) 1.30 - 1.33
OpenShift 4.15 - 4.19
Minikube 1.36.0 based on Kubernetes 1.33.1

This list only includes the platforms that the Percona Operators are specifically tested on as part of the release process. Other Kubernetes flavors and versions depend on the backward compatibility offered by Kubernetes itself.

Percona certified images¶

Find Percona’s certified Docker images that you can use with the Percona Operator for MySQL based on Percona XtraDB Cluster in the following table.

Images released with the Operator version 1.18.0:

Image	Digest
percona/percona-xtradb-cluster-operator:1.18.0 (x86_64)	0eca0b096482c7d09792c15fee00dbdcd0fbf3cd487dab60eb2774b025681e85
percona/percona-xtradb-cluster-operator:1.18.0 (ARM64)	bdb7a0ff6b78e98b16f8b521e91682202b6d404202283b34b8168013d5c06356
percona/haproxy:2.8.15	49e6987a1c8b27e9111ae1f1168dd51f2840eb6d939ffc157358f0f259819006
percona/proxysql2:2.7.3	51fedf9de05e4f130d5b08388511536fb1e1050a24ffc21bedb0f0b61a236567
percona/percona-xtrabackup:8.4.0-3.1	01071522753ad94e11a897859bba4713316d08e493e23555c0094d68da223730
percona/percona-xtrabackup:8.0.35-34.1	2dc127b08971051296d421b22aa861bb0330cf702b4b0246ae31053b0f01911e
percona/percona-xtrabackup:2.4.29	11b92a7f7362379fc6b0de92382706153f2ac007ebf0d7ca25bac2c7303fdf10
percona/fluentbit:4.0.1	a4ab7dd10379ccf74607f6b05225c4996eeff53b628bda94e615781a1f58b779
percona/pmm-client:3.3.1	29a9bb1c69fef8bedc4d4a9ed0ae8224a8623fd3eb8676ef40b13fd044188cb4
percona/pmm-client:2.44.1-1	52a8fb5e8f912eef1ff8a117ea323c401e278908ce29928dafc23fac1db4f1e3
percona/percona-xtradb-cluster:8.4.5-5.1	918c54c11c96bf61bb3f32315ef6b344b7b1d68a0457a47a3804eca3932b2b17
percona/percona-xtradb-cluster:8.0.42-33.1	476851339090e44bb72760ae718fc36beb73a6028a29459e849271649018d546
percona/percona-xtradb-cluster:8.0.41-32.1	d9c84884a12631306d5a33a079e30bf7b65d3d380b07b397d7b1b6a642cc6bff
percona/percona-xtradb-cluster:8.0.39-30.1	6a53a6ad4e7d2c2fb404d274d993414a22cb67beecf7228df9d5d994e7a09966
percona/percona-xtradb-cluster:8.0.36-28.1	b5cc4034ccfb0186d6a734cb749ae17f013b027e9e64746b2c876e8beef379b3
percona/percona-xtradb-cluster:8.0.35-27.1	1ef24953591ef1c1ce39576843d5615d4060fd09458c7a39ebc3e2eda7ef486b
percona/percona-xtradb-cluster:5.7.44-31.65	36fafdef46485839d4ff7c6dc73b4542b07031644c0152e911acb9734ff2be85
percona/percona-xtradb-cluster:5.7.42-31.65	9dab86780f86ec9caf8e1032a563c131904b75a37edeaec159a93f7d0c16c603
percona/percona-xtradb-cluster:5.7.39-31.61	9013170a71559bbac92ba9c2e986db9bda3a8a9e39ee1ee350e0ee94488bb6d7
percona/percona-xtradb-cluster:5.7.36-31.55	c7bad990fc7ca0fde89240e921052f49da08b67c7c6dc54239593d61710be504
percona/percona-xtradb-cluster:5.7.34-31.51	f8d51d7932b9bb1a5a896c7ae440256230eb69b55798ff37397aabfd58b80ccb

Last update: 2025-08-14