Kyverno 1.8: Advanced Policy Engine Capabilities

Introduction

Kyverno 1.8, released on August 5, 2022, continues to advance Kubernetes-native policy enforcement with improved mutation capabilities, enhanced image verification, and better security features. This release builds on Kyverno 1.0 GA, delivering production-ready policy management for cloud-native security.

Security features matter most when you’re trying to enforce guardrails without blocking delivery. This release is useful if you’re tightening policy, improving visibility, or hardening defaults across Kubernetes workloads.

Enhanced Mutation Capabilities

• Mutation improvements provide more reliable resource modification before admission.
• Mutation ordering enables predictable application of multiple mutation policies.
• Dry-run support allows previewing mutations without actually modifying resources.
• Error handling improvements provide better feedback when mutations fail.

Image Verification Enhancements

1. Image signing improvements provide better verification of container image authenticity and integrity.
2. SBOM support (Software Bill of Materials) provides better supply chain security.
3. Vulnerability scanning integration enables automatic blocking of images with critical vulnerabilities.
4. Registry integration improvements support more container registries and signing formats.

Security & Compliance

• Pod security policies enforce security contexts, seccomp profiles, and AppArmor/SELinux configurations.
• RBAC automation generates RoleBindings and ClusterRoleBindings based on namespace or user patterns.
• Compliance reporting provides detailed audit logs of policy violations and enforcement actions.
• Policy exceptions enable controlled bypassing of policies for specific resources or use cases.

Policy Capabilities

• Context-aware policies leverage Kubernetes metadata (labels, annotations, namespaces) for intelligent decisions.
• Resource quotas enforcement automatically applies ResourceQuotas and LimitRanges based on namespace characteristics.
• Network policy generation creates NetworkPolicies automatically based on pod labels and service selectors.
• Policy composition enables combining multiple policies for complex enforcement scenarios.

Operational Excellence

• Policy testing framework enables unit testing of policies before deployment to production.
• Dry-run mode previews policy effects without actually modifying resources.
• Metrics & observability exposes Prometheus metrics for policy evaluation counts, violations, and performance.
• Webhook management simplifies installation and configuration of admission webhooks.

Getting Started

kubectl create namespace kyverno
kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kyverno/kyverno/v1.8.0/definitions/release/install.yaml

Create a validation policy:

apiVersion: kyverno.io/v1
kind: ClusterPolicy
metadata:
  name: require-labels
spec:
  validationFailureAction: enforce
  rules:
  - name: check-labels
    match:
      resources:
        kinds:
        - Pod
    validate:
      message: "Labels 'app' and 'version' are required"
      pattern:
        metadata:
          labels:
            app: "?*"
            version: "?*"

Summary

Kyverno 1.8 delivers advanced policy capabilities that make Kubernetes security and compliance accessible to all teams.