redpanda

> [!IMPORTANT]

> This is the last Redpanda release published on GitHub. Find release notes for versions after v26.2.2 in the Redpanda docs.

>

> To download Redpanda and rpk, see Get started.

Features

• rpk sql debug bundle collects a diagnostic bundle from an Oxla (SQL) cluster. by @Bixkog in #31078 by @tyson-redpanda in #31294
• rpk generate grafana-dashboard gains a new operations-stretch dashboard: a Grafana dashboard for stretch clusters managed by the Redpanda Operator, covering cross-cluster raft health, StretchCluster member status, and operator reconcile health. Generate it with rpk generate grafana-dashboard --dashboard operations-stretch. by @RafalKorepta in #31641
• rpk generate grafana-dashboard now offers a load-factor dashboard showing utilization relative to capacity for key broker resources (CPU, IO scheduler, disk IOPS, memory, network bandwidth, client connections). by @travisdowns in #31555
• rpk now supports Shadow Link role sync in Redpanda Cloud clusters by @r-vasquez in #31625
• rpk shadow update now accepts a --config-file flag to apply a configuration file directly. by @r-vasquez in #31329

Bug Fixes

• Fix the registered config name for leader_balancer_node_mute_timeout. by @WillemKauf in #31359
• Fixed Schema Registry aborting the broker when a request failed before

its deferred authorization check with

schema_registry_enable_authorization enabled. Such requests now

return an error response. by @nguyen-andrew in #31590

• Fixed a crash that could occur when removing a partition with a very large number of log segments, e.g. during partition rebalancing. by @pgellert in #31503
• Fixed a crash where a snapshot write failing on a full disk (ENOSPC) aborted

the node with a misleading "snapshot writer has to be closed" assertion

instead of surfacing the I/O error. by @nvartolomei in #31277

• Fixed a crash where a snapshot write failing on a full disk (ENOSPC) aborted the node with a misleading "snapshot writer has to be closed" assertion instead of surfacing the I/O error. by @nvartolomei in #31180 by @tyson-redpanda in #31294
• Fixed a race in the internal Kafka client where a concurrent request on a

freshly established SASL connection could be sent before authentication

finished, causing the broker to drop the connection. by @nvartolomei in #31273

• Fixed a race in the internal Kafka client where a concurrent request on a freshly established SASL connection could be sent before authentication finished, causing the broker to drop the connection. by @nvartolomei in #31152 by @tyson-redpanda in #31294
• Fixes a bug in timequeries on cloud topics which could result in returning an offset up to one indexing interval (4_MiB of records by default) later than the first record at or after the requested timestamp by @WillemKauf in #31417
• Fixes a bug in which L0 batches in a cloud topic forgot to preserve last_offset_delta in their header, leading to an under-declared last offset which can stall consumers, skip records, or halt exact-offset replication. by @WillemKauf in #31364
• Fixes a bug in which timequeries on a cloud topic could either fail by dropping the client connection or by returning an unfetchable offset below a partition's start offset. by @WillemKauf in #31424
• Fixes a bug in which topics with min.compaction.lag.ms left unconfigured with produced batches holding timestamps in the future would be considered ineligible for compaction by @WillemKauf in #31458
• Fixes a bug in which transient TOPIC_AUTHORIZATION_FAILED errors and SASL authentication failures were possible during application of a controller snapshot. by @WillemKauf in #31435
• Fixes a bug where corrupted storage would not yield a bad CRC in returned record batches. by @andrwng in #31389
• Fixes a bug where having a cloud topic read replica on a given cluster would prevent L0 objects on that cluster from being garbage collected. by @andrwng in #31390
• Fixes a potential crash in \DescribeLogDirs\ by @WillemKauf in #31173 by @tyson-redpanda in #31294
• Fixes an issue where backpressure from the Iceberg coordinator would cause high CPU load on the translators. by @andrwng in #31583
• Fixes potential unbounded growth of various s3_fifo users under specific workloads. by @ballard26 in #31643
• HTTP Proxy: Consumer group fetches no longer fail indefinitely with \offset_out_of_range\ after retention moves a topic's log start offset past 0; the consumer now recovers to the earliest available offset (\auto.offset.reset=earliest\). by @bartoszpiekny-redpanda in #31064 by @tyson-redpanda in #31294
• Lifecycle fix on groups by @joe-redpanda in #31171 by @tyson-redpanda in #31294
• Redpanda will no longer incorrectly accept client-produced control batches. by @andrwng in #31605
• Updating a Shadow Link that uses PLAIN authentication no longer fails when the password is omitted; the stored password is preserved. by @r-vasquez in #31394
• #31446 rpk connect install --connect-version no longer rejects versions with a

segment of three or more digits, which had blocked pinning any Redpanda Connect

release since 4.100.0. Malformed versions with trailing characters are now

rejected during validation rather than failing at download. by @prakhargarg105 in #31447

• #31548 rpk connect upgrade no longer fails to determine the currently-installed Redpanda Connect version when that version has a segment of three or more digits, which had blocked upgrading any Connect install since 4.100.0. by @JakeSCahill in #31549
• rpk security secrets list no longer truncates its output at 100 secrets. by @simon0191 in #31434
• rpk shadow create no longer fails secret-reference validation on clusters

with more than one page of REDPANDA_CLUSTER-scoped secrets. by @simon0191 in #31434

• rpk shadow update in editor mode now replaces the entire Shadow Link configuration instead of merging changed fields, so list-valued fields (e.g. topic filters) can shrink or be cleared. by @r-vasquez in #31394
• The describe-storage RPK command will now have a valid output for tiered_v2 topics by @andrwng in #31267
• Avoids a reactor stall on the Iceberg coordinator snapshotting mechanism when there is a large number of parquet files pending commit by @nvartolomei in #31278
• Fixes a rare crash in Cloud Topics caused by replication failures. by @Lazin in #31523
• Fixed a use-after-free during shutdown in the Kafka quota manager's garbage collection. by @nvartolomei

Improvements

• Cloud Topics compaction will now commit work in chunks, which should result in more stable compaction for partitions with a large amount of data. by @WillemKauf in #31312
• Added a \schema_registry_replay_on_startup\ cluster property (default off) that hydrates the Schema Registry store at broker start-up rather than lazily on the first request. by @sjust-redpanda in #31137 by @tyson-redpanda in #31294
• Avoid oversized allocations for some of the \schema_registry\ and \pandaproxy\ handler interfaces. by @WillemKauf in #31103 by @tyson-redpanda in #31294
• Fixes an issue where /v1/usage responses could cause oversized allocations for clusters with a large number of Iceberg-enabled topics. by @WillemKauf in #31333
• HTTP Proxy: a consumer group now resumes from its committed offset on a fresh consumer instance instead of re-reading from the earliest available offset. by @bartoszpiekny-redpanda in #31112 by @tyson-redpanda in #31294
• Optimize the \schema_registry\ recovery path by caching references when canonicalizing schemas. by @WillemKauf in #31141 by @tyson-redpanda in #31294
• Optimize the cloud topics and local storage compaction implementations by reducing the amount of record copying performed. by @WillemKauf in #31018 by @tyson-redpanda in #31294