Rancher Desktop v1.22.0

This is the 1.22.0 release of Rancher Desktop, an open source desktop application to bring Kubernetes and container management to macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Installers

• Windows
• macOS x86_64
• macOS aarch64
• Linux install notes

Release Notes for 1.22.0

What's New

Select moby storage driver

Version 1.21.0 switched to the containerd-snapshotter storage driver by default. On Windows, this happened unconditionally (even on upgrades), which made existing images inaccessible.

Users can now choose between the classic and containerd-snapshotter storage drivers via rdctl:

rdctl set --container-engine.moby-storage-driver classic
rdctl set --container-engine.moby-storage-driver snapshotter

Rancher Desktop automatically selects the driver based on where your existing images are stored. See Migrating Images for instructions on moving images between storage drivers. Windows users affected by the 1.21.0 issue can switch back to the classic driver to regain access to their images. (#9732)

Docker 29 in the VM

Alpine Linux has been updated to version 3.23, which includes Docker 29. This fixes issues with docker inspect returning incomplete image metadata. (#9671, #9739)

Kubernetes Dashboard improvements

Pod log streaming now works in the Dashboard. This was broken since version 1.6.0. (#3212)

The Dashboard button now waits until the Steve API server accepts connections before becoming active. Previously, clicking the button too quickly after Kubernetes started would show a spinner that never resolved. (#8217)

The non-functional "Download KubeConfig" and "Kubectl Shell" buttons have been removed from the cluster dashboard. (#2208, #8151, #8757)

Docker Compose 5.0

Docker Compose has been updated to version 5.0. Key changes include:

• Compose can now be used as an SDK for third-party integrations
• The internal builder has been removed; builds are delegated to Docker Bake
• Hooks now run on restart
• New --wait option for the start command

Helm 4.0

Helm has been updated to version 4.0. See the Helm 4.0 release notes for details on the changes.

Diagnostics

Moby image store check

A new diagnostic reports when images exist in the inactive image store (classic vs. containerd-snapshotter), helping identify which images need migration. (#9733)

Windows: wsl-vpnkit detection

A new diagnostic warns when the wsl-vpnkit distribution is present, as it can cause networking issues with Rancher Desktop. (#9623)

Bug Fixes

macOS CA management with multiple keychains

Fixed a bug where certificates from multiple keychains were being written to the same file path, causing only the last keychain's certificates to be processed. (#9755)

K3s version channel labels not updating

Fixed an issue where version channel labels (e.g, stable, latest, v1.xx) were not removed from old versions when they moved to newer versions, causing multiple patch versions to appear in the recommended list. (#9709)

K3s image loading for older versions

Made the --all-platforms flag optional when loading K3s images, so older K3s versions (before 1.31) load images correctly. (#9708, #9710)

rdctl info works after upgrade

Fixed an issue where rdctl info failed with a BusyBox error for users who upgraded from version 1.19.3 or earlier, or restored an old snapshot. The 1.21.0 release notes mentioned a manual workaround; this is no longer needed. (#9546, #9554)

Containers page error handling

Fixed an "[object Object]" error that appeared on the Containers page when the backend became temporarily unavailable. (#9545, #9661)

Connectivity check uses HTTPS

The network connectivity diagnostic now uses an HTTPS HEAD request instead of HTTP GET, improving privacy by encrypting the request. (#9711)

Linux packaging fixes

Fixed an issue where the Debian package did not set the suid bit on chrome-sandbox, causing the application to fail to start on Debian and Ubuntu systems.

The virtualization support check now works correctly on Linux arm64 systems.

Extension fixes

Fixed several issues with Docker Desktop extensions:

• Uninstall and upgrade buttons on the Installed tab now work correctly
• Extension metadata and icons refresh properly after reinstalling an extension
• Extensions without containers no longer cause errors during uninstall
• The ddClient.extension object now includes the id and version fields as specified by the Docker Desktop Extension API

Updates to Bundled Utilities (from Rancher Desktop 1.21.0)

• docker 29.0.2 → 29.1.4
• docker-compose 2.40.3 → 5.0.1
• docker-credential-helpers 0.9.4 → 0.9.5
• helm 3.19.1 → 4.0.5
• nerdctl 2.2.0 → 2.2.1
• trivy 0.67.2 → 0.68.2

Unchanged:

• amazon-ecr-credential-helper 0.11.0
• docker-buildx 0.30.1
• kuberlr 0.6.1
• spin 3.5.1
• spin-shim 0.22.0
• spin-operator 0.6.1

Connect with the developers

• The issue queue

• Rancher Users Slack in the #rancher-desktop channel

Changelog

The full version changelog, from v1.21.0, can be found using GitHub compare and the details of the release can be found in the v1.22.0 milestone.