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Kong Konnect

Kong Konnect Updates

The updates contained in this topic apply to Kong Konnect, an application that lets you manage configuration for multiple runtimes from a single, cloud-based control plane, and provides a catalog of all deployed services. Try it today!

March 2023

Enriched documentation experience for service packages
Kong Konnect users can now publish contextual documentation as multiple markdown files in the Service Hub and render in the Dev Portal, so that developers can see different material more clearly. For example, release notes can now be published separately from deployment workflows.
Enhanced Service Hub experience
The Service Hub user experience is now more intuitive, helpful, and impressive as the primary Service catalog for application developers and API product owners. We’ve optimized descriptions, placement of information, and rendering of data to include markdown files and API specs.

February 2023

Support for Gateway 3.2.x features
Kong Konnect now supports the following features released in Kong Gateway 3.2.1.0:
  • Asymmetric Key Storage: Keys and key sets can now be configured in Runtime Manager.
  • Optional plugin config field: Every plugin now supports the optional instance_name field.
System accounts
Organizations now have access to system accounts which can be created without a verified email address. This allows a system account to be used as part of an automation or integration that is not associated with any person’s identity.
Multiple authentication methods for Dynamic Client Registration
Dynamic Client Registration (DCR) now supports multiple authentication methods, including client credentials, bearer tokens, and session cookies.
OAS Validation plugin support
Kong Konnect now supports the OAS Validation plugin. This plugin allows you to validate HTTP requests and responses based on an API specification. For more information, see the OAS Validation plugin documentation.
Dev Portal RBAC via the API
You can now perform Dev Portal RBAC operations using the Kong Konnect API. This allows you to assign the following roles to Dev Portal developers:
  • API viewer: Allows the Dev Portal developer to view the documentation of services.
  • API consumer: Allows the Dev Portal developer to register their applications with the consumer services.

For more information, see Portal RBAC Setup and the Portal RBAC API documentation.

January 2023

Dynamic plugin ordering using the UI
You can now configure dynamic plugin ordering using the Konnect user interface. Dynamic plugin ordering allows you to override the default static plugin execution order by choosing which plugins run before or after another plugin.

Known limitation: The control plane can’t evaluate any conflicts in the dynamic ordering. If there are any conflicts in the defined order of plugin execution, you will only know during execution via the dataplane logs.

For more information, see Plugin Ordering Reference.

Consumer groups
Konnect now supports configure consumer groups to enable tier-based API consumption via the Konnect user interface. Consumer groups work with the Rate Limiting Advanced plugin to allow you to manage custom rate limiting configurations for subsets of consumers. With consumer groups, you can define any number of rate limiting tiers and apply them to subsets of consumers instead of managing each consumer individually. Consumer groups are also supported through decK.

Known limitation: There is a rate limiting advanced plugin bug for local strategy where the number of remaining requests resets after every couple of seconds. You can use the Redis strategy as a workaround or if you want to test with local strategy, you can use Kong Gateway version 3.0.2.0.

For more information, see Create Consumer Groups in Konnect.

Auth0 support for Dynamic Client Registration
Auth0 is now available as an identity provider for Dynamic Client Registration (DCR).

Known limitation: Unlike other DCR providers, Auth0 requires specifying audience, which represents an independent token recipient. Multiple applications can be mapped to one Audience API within auth0 and share the same permissions accordingly. Currently, our OIDC plugin can only support single audience for this release. We will consider adding support for mutliple audiences in the future iteration.

Simplified docker script for creating Runtime Instances
Konnect now supports a simplified docker script to create a new runtime instance as well as in the QuickStart which makes it easier to create runtime instances. Instead of downloading a script from github, customers can now use a simple docker run command. This decrease the time and effort taken by customers to launch a Kong Gateway and improves security during runtime instance creation. Runtime Manager also supports simple copy buttons inside the code block components to make it easy for users to copy!
Curity support for Dynamic Client Registration (GA)
Curity is now available as an identity provider for Dynamic Client Registration (DCR).

December 2022

Curity support for Dynamic Client Registration (beta)
Curity is now in beta release as an identity provider for Dynamic Client Registration (DCR).
Secrets management using vaults
Konnect now supports storing sensitive values in a vault with any of the following backends:
  • Environment variables
  • AWS Secrets Manager
  • HashiCorp Vault
  • GCP Secret Manager
See the vaults documentation to get started.
App Registration Enhancement
Konnect now supports editing the app registration configuration while the app registration is still active.
Runtime Groups Configuration API
Konnect APIs for runtime group configuration are now available for external consumption. This set of APIs allow organizations to create and manage kong gateway entities and CP/DP certificates. As a result, customers can leverage our APIs to provision runtime groups in their automated pipelines or platform infrastructure while managing data plane connections.
New Kong Konnect Analytics custom report chart types and metrics
You can now choose between different chart types when creating custom reports. This feature allows you to better understand traffic patterns, user behavior, or trends over time.

The new additions include:

  • New chart types: You can now select between either horizontal or vertical bar charts, as well as line charts.
  • New metrics: You can now measure requests per minute, response latency, response size, and request size as percentiles.
  • New time selector: Allows you to use relative time periods, which can help you avoid manually adjusting your reports for weekly reports.

For more information, see Generate Reports.

Konnect Overview & Service Wizard
Konnect admins now have an Overview page which offers a high-level summary of their entire Konnect platform, news updates, and learning opportunities. In addition, we’ve added a new Service Wizard to walk admins through the end-to-end process of setting up a Service Package & Service Version, configuring a Kong Gateway, uploading documentation, and publishing a Service to the developer portal.
Kong Gateway 3.1 support
Konnect users can now use Kong Gateway 3.1 with Konnect. This allows Konnect users to access the new capabilities and improvements added to Kong Gateway 3.1 core platforms.
Support for all Kong Gateway 3.1 plugins
Konnect users can now take advantage of the the entire plugin suite offered alongside Kong Gateway 3.1. For more information about the available plugins. review our compatibility documentation.
Runtime Groups API
Konnect APIs for runtime groups are now available for external consumption. This set of APIs allow organizations to create and manage runtime groups and manage CP/DP certificates. View API documentation.

November 2022

Application registration support in any runtime group
Konnect now officially supports app registration to services in both default and non-default runtime groups. Portal developers can register their applications to consume services proxied through gateway services in both default and non-default runtime groups.

Currently, this feature is only available for services being proxied through Kong Gateway 3.0.0.0 or later.

Dev portal Dynamic Client Registration

As part of this release, we have improved the UI for DCR to provide a more polished experience for users.

Certificate management functionality added to the Kong Konnect runtime manager
Konnect now allows customers to handle the complexity of creating, storing, and organizing certificates needed for runtime instances connected to runtime groups in Konnect. This reduces operational complexity for customers while ensuring that security is not compromised.
New Analytics predefined teams
Konnect now allows you to add users to the Analytics Viewer and Analytics Admin teams. These teams allow you to give users access to only the Analytics section in Konnect. With this release, individual users don’t have to be Organization Admins anymore to access all the Analytics capabilities.

Konnect now includes the following predefined Analytics teams:

  • Analytics Admin: Users can fully manage all Analytics content, which includes creating, editing, and deleting reports, as well as viewing the analytics summary.
  • Analytics Viewer: Users can only view the analytics summary and report data.

For more information, see Teams Reference.

Migration to cloud.konghq.com is completed
All active accounts have been migrated from konnect.konghq.com to cloud.konghq.com. The deprecated environment at konnect.konghq.com is no longer available.
Multiple runtime groups
All the runtime groups in Konnect, including default and non-default runtime groups, are eligible for application registration.
Editing the default runtime group
You can now edit the name of the default runtime group. The group still retains its status as the default group, and can’t be deleted.
Konnect APIs for identity management
Konnect APIs for identity management are now available for external consumption. This set of APIs allow organizations to manage users, teams, team memberships, team mappings and role assignments. As a result, customers can leverage our APIs to build custom integrations with their identity provider or ERP systems to manage their users and user’s access to Konnect. IdP API documentation

October 2022

Dynamic client registration
Dynamic client registration with Okta is now in public beta. Test it out yourself!
Latency reporting
The Analytics dashboard now includes a latency tab, which lets you track request latency for the P50, P95, and P99 percentiles. P99 latency data also appears in runtime groups and on service overview pages in the Service Hub.

This feature is available for runtime instances running Kong Gateway 3.0.0.0 or later.

September 2022

Analytics custom reports
Analytics custom reports are now generally available in Kong Konnect. This release focuses on stability and minor usability improvements.

Custom reporting provides more data insights by allowing you to view data details and export data into a CSV file.

Runtime groups dashboard
In Kong Konnect, you now have insights into your runtime groups usage across all and individual runtime instances. These insights help platform owners to understand the health and performance of each runtime group, which often reflects individual business units in a more federated organization.
Custom plugin instantiation
Kong Konnect now allows you to discover, configure, and apply Kong approved custom plugins to your control planes directly through the plugin hub in Runtime Manager. You can do this by submitting your custom plugin schemas for approval through the CRE teams. This allows you to expand Kong’s functionality in your environment by using custom plugins, while reducing the operational overhead of working with your CRE teams to discover, configure, and apply custom plugins.
Launch runtimes directly in a cloud provider
You can now create runtime instances in Azure and AWS directly through Kong Konnect. This simplifies the operational process for creating the runtime instance in your private cloud for AWS and Azure.
Support for multiple versions of runtime instances
Kong Konnect now supports running multiple runtime instances versions at the same time with the same control plane configuration. This makes it easier for you to test and validate new runtime instance versions, such as patch, minor, and major upgrades. This release includes a new user interface that provides information about which runtime instances are incompatible with the current gateway configuration and provides actionable insights into the corrective steps to fix the issue.
Quick start for new Kong Konnect org admins
Kong Konnect now includes an optional quick start that automatically creates a runtime group, service package, and gateway service, applies the CORS plugin, and shows analytics for that service with the click of a button. You can use the quick start to become familiar with the different aspects of Kong Konnect via text and call-outs to key documentation throughout the onboarding process.
Organization Admin (Read Only) predefined team
A new predefined team has been introduced in Kong Konnect. This team allows you to grant users read-only access to all features and functions in Kong Konnect. As always, permissions are additive, so a user in the Organization Admin (Read Only) team may also have write access to various features if they are assigned additional permissions.
Multi-runtime group app registration support
You can now enable app registration to services in all runtime groups. This feature only supports versions in the non-default runtime group that use Kong Gateway 3.0.

As part of this release, API key credentials are no longer stored in the Dev Portal. Portal developers will need to store their credentials immediately after creation.

Dynamic client registration
Kong Konnect Dev Portal supports integration with Okta for end-to-end client management. This feature is released as a private beta. This feature allows Dev Portal developers to automatically create applications in Okta and receive credentials to access services proxied through Kong Gateway.
Service version lifecycle
You can identify the lifecycle stage of your APIs and notify Dev Portal developers if a particular API will be deprecated soon.
Kong Gateway 3.0.0.0 support
Kong Konnect now supports Kong Gateway 3.0.0.0 runtimes. You can keep using existing 2.8.x runtimes, or you can upgrade to 3.0.0.0 to take advantage of any new features, updates, and bug fixes.

With this major release, Kong Gateway introduces many new features, including:

  • Five new plugins, including WebSocket validation support, TLS connection customization, and OpenTelemetry
  • A new expression-based router
  • Dynamic plugin ordering through declarative configuration
  • Slim and UBI Docker images and much more.

3.0.0.0 is a major release. This means that it contains breaking changes and incompatibilities with 2.x versions. Review the list of breaking changes before upgrading to 3.0.

In particular, note the following:

For all the changes and new features in Kong Gateway 3.0.0.0, see the changelog.

To use any new features in the release, start up a new 3.0.0.0 runtime.

August 2022

Generic OIDC

Konnect launches generic OIDC support to allow Single-Sign-On (SSO) for platform login. Customers now have the ability to configure a separate OIDC-compliant Identity Provider (IdP) for Konnect. Generic OIDC is an Enterprise feature.

Personal Access Tokens

Konnect users can now generate personal access tokens (PATs). PATs are used as an alternative method of authentication for decK commands avoiding the need to use traditional username and passwords.

AWS Marketplace Listing

Konnect Enterprise can now be purchased through the AWS Marketplace or via private contract with your Amazon Web Services account team. This greatly simplifies the procurement process for existing AWS customers.

DevPortal Custom Domain Progress Indicator

We’ve added an in interactive checklist when configuring a custom domain for your developer portal. There is now an indicator to help understand if your DNS changes have propogated, and when the SSL certificate has been generated by Konnect.

Download option to all reports

We have introduced an “Export” option to all reports inside the overview page in Vitals. Exporting a report downloads an unpivoted CSV to your local machine that can be used for offline analysis.

July 2022

New environment for Konnect
Konnect is now available at cloud.konghq.com, which replaces the konnect.konghq.com environment. The environment at konnect.konghq.com will no longer receive any updates, and will be deprecated in the near future.

Existing organizations will be automatically upgraded to the new Konnect environment over the next 4-6 weeks. We will be contacting your organization administrator with more details on the upgrade process.

You can continue using your konnect.konghq.com account and wait until we migrate it, or create a new account and manually migrate configuration to the new account.

The minimum supported Kong Gateway version for this environment is 2.5.0.1.

Runtime groups
Konnect now manages all runtime configuration through runtime groups, which provide the ability to securely isolate configuration for sets of runtime instances. Essentially, this gives you access to multiple SaaS-managed control planes in one Konnect organization.

Every organization starts with one default runtime group. Additional custom runtime groups are an enterprise-only feature.

Learn more about runtime groups, then read up on how to manage them with the Konnect UI or with decK.

With runtime groups come a few other changes to runtime management for all organizations:

  • Certificate rotation and management:
    • When setting up runtime instances through the Konnect UI, certificates are generated in the browser and pushed to the Konnect API.
    • Konnect no longer requires CA certificates for runtime instances.
    • The validity period for runtime instance certificates has been extended from six months to ten years.
  • Reworked Gateway configuration UI:
    • The Shared Config menu is now part of Runtime Manager. Manage your Gateway services, routes, plugins, upstreams, SNIs, and certificates through a runtime group, alongside all of the runtime instances in that group.
  • You can use labels for categorizing runtime groups. Labels are key:value pairs, and are helpful for organizing, searching, and filtering subsets of Konnect entities.
Teams and roles
You can now manage Konnect authorization with teams and roles. Existing RBAC roles have been converted to predefined teams, which are available for all Konnect organizations.

To manage user access, invite users to Konnect and add them to teams, or assign individual roles to a user.

With a Konnect Enterprise subscription, you can also create custom teams and assign per-entity permissions for each team.

Declarative configuration management support with decK
As of decK 1.12, standard decK commands such as diff, sync, and dump support Konnect runtime groups.
Learn how to use decK with Konnect:
Tags for Konnect services
You can now connect Konnect services to Gateway services with the _KonnectService tag.
Konnect UI/UX redesign
The Konnect UI now has reworked navigation, refreshed colors and styles, and a focus on consistent interactions throughout the application.

Navigation redesign details:

  • Services is renamed to Service Hub
  • Runtimes is renamed to Runtime Manager
  • Shared Config is now part of Runtime Manager
  • Dev Portal settings have moved from the general settings page to the Dev Portal section
  • Refreshed iconography for the main menu
Dev Portal default theme
The Dev Portal now comes with a new default theme: “Mint Rocket”.
Dev Portal SSO support with your own IdP
You can now configure custom identity providers (IdPs) for the Dev Portal.
See the SSO documentation for more information.
Simplified custom Dev Portal URL setup
SSL certificate generation for custom URLs is now handled by Konnect.

To set up a custom URL, see the Dev Portal customization documentation for more information.

Vitals metrics and dashboards
The Vitals overview dashboard has been reworked for Plus and Enterprise tiers. The dashboard now provides metrics for services cataloged by Service Hub within a selected time interval. You can view a graph for each category by clicking Traffic or Errors, and switching between the two views. Each graph is filterable by time frame.

In the Service Hub, graphs for services and routes now show data up to the last 30 days.

Vitals custom reports

Vitals custom reports are now available for Plus and Enterprise tiers. Through the Vitals menu, you can create custom reports to track API requests for services, routes, and applications.

See the custom reports documentation for more information.

Custom plugin requirements have changed
Some custom plugin limitations have changed or been removed. See the latest requirements in the plugin documentation.

Custom plugins can’t be added directly through the Kong Konnect application. If you have a custom plugin you want to use in Konnect, contact Kong Support.

Refactored documentation
The Konnect documentation has been refactored to match the new Konnect navigation, and generally reworked to provide a better experience for Konnect users. Let us know what you think via team-docs@konghq.com!
Known issues/limitations
The cloud.konghq.com environment has the following restrictions:
  • Application registration through Dev Portal can only be used with the default runtime group. This restriction will be removed in a future update to Konnect.
  • The following plugins are not supported:
    • OAuth2 Authentication
    • Apache OpenWhisk
    • Vault Auth
    • DeGraphQL
    • GraphQL Rate Limiting Advanced
    • Key Authentication Encrypted
  • decK does not support authenticating against Runtime Groups when single sign-on (SSO) is enabled.

March 2022

Kong Gateway 2.8.0.0 support
Kong Konnect now supports Kong Gateway 2.8.0.0 runtimes. You can keep using existing 2.7.x runtimes, or you can upgrade to 2.8.0.0 to take advantage of any new features, updates, and bug fixes.

For all the changes and new features in Kong Gateway 2.8.x, see the changelog.

To use any new features in the release, start up a new 2.8.0.0 runtime.

January 2022

Custom Domain for Dev Portal
You can now set a custom domain for your Dev Portal through the Kong Konnect Admin UI.

See the documentation: Add a Custom Domain.

Headers are modifiable
You can now set a welcome message and primary header through the Admin UI for your Dev Portal.

December 2021

Kong Gateway 2.7.0.0 support
Kong Konnect now supports Kong Gateway 2.7.0.0 runtimes. You can keep using existing 2.6.x runtimes, or you can upgrade to 2.7.0.0 to take advantage of any new features, updates, and bug fixes.

For all the changes and new features in Kong Gateway 2.7.x, see the changelog.

To use any new features in the release, start up a new 2.7.0.0 runtime.

November 2021

Single-sign on (SSO) with Okta
Kong Konnect now supports single sign-on (SSO) access through Okta with OpenID Connect.

See the guide on Setting up SSO with Okta for more information.

Kong Gateway 2.6.0.0 support
Kong Konnect now supports Kong Gateway 2.6.0.0 runtimes. You can keep using existing 2.5.x runtimes, or you can upgrade to 2.6.0.0 to take advantage of any new features, updates, and bug fixes.
This release introduces the new jq plugin. It also adds new features and improvements to a long list of plugins, including:
  • Kafka Log and Kafka Upstream: Support for TLS, mTLS, and SASL auth
  • Prometheus: Introduces the data_plane_cluster_cert_expiry_timestamp metric, letting you keep an eye on the status of you data plane certificates
  • Request Termination: Introduces the new trigger configuration option, which tells the plugin to activate only on specific headers or query parameters

To use any new features in the release and gain access to the jq plugin, start up a new runtime.

For all the changes and new features in Kong Gateway 2.6.x, see the changelog.

Tags for auth plugins created by application registration
When you enable application registration on a Service, Kong Konnect enables two plugins automatically: ACL, and one of Key Authentication or OIDC. These plugins cannot be edited or deleted directly. To help differentiate the Konnect-managed plugins and avoid breaking your service, Konnect now adds two metadata tags for declarative configuration: konnect-managed-plugin and konnect-app-registration.

August 2021

Kong Gateway 2.5.0.1 support
Kong Konnect now supports Kong Gateway 2.5.0.1. runtimes. You can keep using existing 2.4.x runtimes, or you can upgrade to 2.5.0.1 to take advantage of any new features, updates, and bug fixes.
This release includes event hook support, improvements to CP-DP communication, new configuration options in plugins, and more.
For all the changes and new features in Kong Gateway 2.5.x, see the changelog.

June 2021

Global plugin support
You can now configure global plugins through Kong Konnect. Visit the Shared Config page and select the Plugin menu option to get started.
Kong Gateway 2.4.1.1 support
Kong Konnect now supports Kong Gateway 2.4.1.1 runtimes. You can keep using existing 2.3.x runtimes, or you can upgrade to 2.4.1.1 to take advantage of any new features.
The 2.4.1.1 release includes two new plugins: OPA and Mocking. To use these plugins, and any other features newly introduced in this release, start up a new runtime.
For all the changes and new features in Kong Gateway 2.4.x, see the changelog.
More plugins available in Kong Konnect
The following plugins are now available:
Default strategy/policy for rate limiting plugins
The rate limiting plugins now default to redis as the rate limiting strategy or policy. This setting allows cluster-wide rate limiting using a Redis server. To store counters in-memory on each node, change this setting to local.

The cluster config strategy/policy is not supported in Kong Konnect, and does not appear as an option in the plugin configuration anymore.

To find the setting based on the rate limiting plugin, see:

Sorting the runtime status table
You can now sort the runtime status table in Runtime Manager by the Last Seen or Sync Status columns.

May 2021

Certificate expiration limit extended
The validity period for runtime certificates has been extended from 30 days to six months.

To take advantage of the new validity period, bring up new data planes through the Runtime Manager. For existing instances, generate new certificates.

Konnect Plus is launched!
Konnect introduces a new plan tier system for subscriptions.
  • Kong Konnect Free: Basic features and plugins with a cloud control plane.
  • Kong Konnect Plus: A pay-as-you-go, credit card-based option that provides a simple way for developers or operators on small teams to quickly start using the services they need right now.
  • Kong Konnect Enterprise: For organizations that want to manage all services across their entire organization. Konnect Enterprise provides connectivity with enterprise-grade security, scalability, and observability across any cloud, platform, and protocol to help teams build powerful digital services and experiences.

If you already have a Konnect or Kong Enterprise account and license, this license will roll over seamlessly into the new Konnect Enterprise tier.

Konnect Plus free trials
When you sign up for a Konnect account, you are automatically enrolled into a 30-day Konnect Plus free trial. You don’t need to provide a credit card or any info beyond the account registration. At the end of the trial, you’ll have the choice to keep the account at the Plus tier or downgrade to Free.
Billing and plan management
You can now manage your plan subscription for Free and Plus plan tiers directly from the app. Konnect now includes a Stripe integration, and the process is fully self-serve: choose your plan, add a card, make payments, all through the Konnect app and billing portal.
Self-serve account registration
You can now sign up for a Konnect account without an access code. No more reaching out to Kong support or sales for access – just go to https://cloud.konghq.com and try it out!
Runtime setup improvements
Runtime setup for Linux and Kubernetes environments has improved. When you configure a new runtime, instead of one Advanced tab, the Runtime Manager now has Linux and Kubernetes tabs. Choose the tab that fits your environment and copy the configuration parameters directly.

Known issues with the Kubernetes tab:

  • The image and repository parameters are in the wrong format and point to a non-existent image. Substitute them with the following:

    image:
  repository: kong/kong-gateway
  tag: "2.3.2.0-alpine"

  • cluster_telemetry_endpoint is missing a space between the parameter and the value. Add a space to fix the formatting:

    cluster_telemetry_endpoint: <your-instance-name>.tp.konnect.konghq.com:443

March 2021

Runtime setup improvement
Quick setup just got a little bit faster. When configuring a new runtime through the Runtime Manager, HTTPie is no longer required for the quick setup script.

February 2021

Kong Gateway 2.3 support
Kong Konnect now supports Kong Gateway 2.3 runtimes. There is no upgrade path for existing runtimes.
To use Kong Gateway 2.3, re-provision a new runtime.
Advanced runtime configuration
You can now configure custom Kong Gateway data planes through the Runtime Manager and run gateway instances outside of Docker. Use the Advanced option when configuring a new runtime to get started.

See the runtime configuration guides for more information:

Logging plugins
The full set of Kong Gateway’s logging plugins is now available through Kong Konnect. This includes:
Portal authentication
You can now disable authentication on a Dev Portal, which exposes the Dev Portal publicly to anyone with the link. No one needs to register for Dev Portal access.
New application registrations aren’t available through a public-facing portal.
Kong Konnect (Konnect) is now generally available!

To get started with Konnect, see the Quickstart Guide.

For more information about Konnect, contact your Kong sales representative.