v1.1.0-rc1

We expect that this release candidate is quite close to the final v1.1.0
release. However, subsequent breaking API changes are still possible.

This release candidate is suitable for implementors, but we do not recommend
shipping products based on a release candidate API due to the possibility of
incompatible changes prior to the final release. The following represents the
changes since v1.0.0:

Standard Channel

GRPCRoute has Graduated to GA 🎉

GRPCRoute has graduated to GA (v1) and is now part of the Standard Channel. If
you are already using the experimental version GRPCRoute, we recommend holding
off on upgrading to the standard channel version of GRPCRoute until the
controllers you're using have been updated to support GRPCRoute v1. Until then,
it is safe to upgrade to the experimental channel version of GRPCRoute in v1.1
that includes both v1alpha2 and v1 API versions.

Leading Contributor: @gnossen

Service Mesh Support has Graduated to GA 🎉

The standard for using Gateway API for Mesh has formally graduated to GA (v1)
and is now part of the Standard Channel.

Service mesh support in Gateway API allows service mesh users to use the same
API to manage ingress traffic and mesh traffic, reusing the same policy and
routing interfaces. In Gateway API v1.1, routes (such as HTTPRoute) can now have
a Service as a parentRef, to control how traffic to specific services
behave. For more information, read the service
mesh documentation or see the list of
implementations.

Leading Contributors: @howardjohn, @keithmattix, @kflynn, @mikemorris

Conformance Profiles and Reports

The Conformance Reports API and the corresponding test suite have been graduated
to GA. The Conformance report API has been expanded with the mode field
(intended to specify the working mode of the implementation), and the
gatewayAPIChannel (standard or experimental). The gatewayAPIVersion and
gatewayAPIChannel are now filled in automatically by the suite machinery,
along with a brief description of the testing outcome. The Reports have been
reorganized in a more structured way, and the implementations can now add
information on how the tests have been run and provide reproduction steps.

Leading Contributors: @mlavacca, @shaneutt

ParentRef Port field Graduated to GA

The port field in ParentRefs has graduated to GA (v1) and is now part of the
Standard Channel. You can use the port field to attach resources to Gateways,
Services, or other parent resources. For example, you can attach an HTTPRoute to
one or more specific Listeners of a Gateway based on the Listener port,
instead of name field.

Leading Contributor: @frankbu

Experimental Channel

Session Persistence + BackendLBPolicy

Session Persistence is being introduced to Gateway API via a new policy
(BackendLBPolicy) for Service-level configuration and as fields within HTTPRoute
and GRPCRoute for Route-level configuration. The BackendLBPolicy and Route-level
APIs provide the same session persistence configuration, including session
timeouts, session name, session type, and cookie lifetime type.

Leading Contributors: @gcs278, @ginayeh

Gateway Client Cert Verification

Gateways can now configure client cert verification for each Gateway Listener by
introducing a new field frontendValidation field within tls. This field
supports configuring a list of CA Certificates that can be used as a trust
anchor to validate the certificates presented by the client.

Leading Contributors: @arkodg

BackendTLSPolicy

As part of a broader goal of making our TLS terminology more consistent
throughout the API, we've introduced some breaking changes to BackendTLSPolicy.
This has resulted in a new API version (v1alpha3) and will require any existing
users of this policy to uninstall the v1alpha2 version before installing this
newer version.

Any references to v1alpha2 BackendTLSPolicy fields will need to be updated.
Specific changes include:

• the targetRef field is now a targetRefs list and these references no
  longer include a namespace field.
• the tls field has been renamed to validation
• the caCertRefs field has been renamed to caCertificateRefs
• the wellKnownCACerts field has been renamed to wellKnownCACertificates

Leading Contributors: @candita

Gateway Params

Gateways now feature a new field that allows references to
implementation-specific parameters, similar to GatewayClass.

Leading Contributors: @howardjohn

Everything Else

gwctl

• We've extended the get command to support gateways, gatewayclasses, and
  namespaces. (#2865, #2782, #2847, @jongwooo)
• The get command now provides more detailed information for httproutes,
  policies, and policycrds. (#2805, #2808, #2811, @jongwooo)
• describe command now supports descriptions of policycrds and namespaces.
  (#2872, #2836, @Devaansh-Kumar)
• We've added the ability to filter resources using labels (through the -l
  flag) with both the get and describe commands. (#2892, #2915, #2934,
  @yeedove)
• Bug fix: Prevent panic when describing gatewayclasses with no description
  (#2894, @pmalek)

Validation Changes

• TLS Configuration is no longer required on Gateway Listeners to enable more
  flexible TLS configuration. (#2721, @robscott)

Conformance Tests

• Conformance Profiles have been renamed and a new Mesh-GRPC profile has been
  added (#3019, @mlavacca):
  • HTTP -> Gateway-HTTP
  • GRPC -> Gateway-GRPC
  • TLS -> Gateway-TLS
  • Mesh -> Mesh-HTTP
• Fixed GatewayWithAttachedRoutes conformance test to not check that the
  HTTPRoute status includes an "Accepted: False" condition because this is not
  required by the specification. (#2548, @frankbu)

Dependencies

• Gateway API has upgraded to Go v1.22 and Kubernetes v1.30 (#2988, @robscott)

Cleanup

• The validating webhook has been removed. CEL validation is now built-in to
  CRDs and replaces the webhook. (#2595, @robscott)
• BackendTLSPolicy WellKnownCACerts field has been updated to
  implementation-specific support (#2741, @sunjayBhatia)
• Clarify policy attachment by two of the same policy types when using section
  names. (#2442, @maleck13)
• Remove v1alpha2 directory from docs: (#2965, @robscott)