# Redpanda v26.2.1

- Product: Redpanda (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/redpanda)
- Vendor: Redpanda Data
- Date: 2026-07-28
- Version: v26.2.1
- Original notes: https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/releases/tag/v26.2.1
- Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/redpanda/releases/v26.2.1

What's New is an index, not a publisher: every entry below links to the vendor's own release notes, which are the authoritative source. Entries are labelled where they are hand-curated sample data, pre-releases, or drawn from a secondary source such as a developer blog.

Reuse: the summaries, labels and curation here are © What's New. Quote freely with attribution and a link back; wholesale republication of the corpus is not permitted — terms: https://whatsnew.fyi/terms. The vendors' own release notes remain their publishers'.

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- **added** — Redpanda Enterprise now supports major version rollback via unfinalized upgrades with rpk cluster upgrade finalize and rpk cluster upgrade status commands
- **added** — Shadowing from non-Redpanda Schema Registries using the HTTP Schema Registry API with shadow_schema_registry_api option
- **added** — Schema Registry sync shadow links now enforce max_source_requests_per_second setting and honor Retry-After response headers
- **added** — Schema Registry shadowing exports sync totals as shadow_link_schema_registry_* counters on metrics endpoints
- **added** — Shadow links can mirror RBAC roles from source cluster to destination with configurable sync interval and role-name filters
- **added** — rpk now supports role_sync_options when creating a Shadow Link
- **added** — Shadowing now supports Cloud Topics
- **added** — Tiered Storage V2 beta with new default_redpanda_storage_mode_tiered_impl cluster config to select between tiered_v1 and tiered_v2
- **added** — New read-only redpanda.storage.mode.impl topic property reports the exact storage mode implementation
- **added** — Schema Registry context support is now enabled by default with subject parsing for context format
- **added** — Schema Registry now accepts /contexts/{context}/... prefixed URLs on all endpoints
- **added** — Add OAUTHBEARER SASL mechanism support to rpk for OIDC-based authentication
- **added** — Add OAUTHBEARER SASL mechanism support to admin API endpoint used by rpk debug remote-bundle start
- **added** — rpk debug remote-bundle start now supports OAUTHBEARER OIDC profiles
- **added** — New layout key in Iceberg translation mode supporting nested and flat layouts
- **added** — Iceberg translation now supports schema registry contexts via redpanda.schema.registry.context topic property
- **added** — Per-entity Kafka quota metrics with kafka_per_entity_quota_metrics configuration option
- **added** — Add rpk check managed plugin for production readiness validation
- **added** — Add rpk k8s managed plugin for interacting with Redpanda clusters on Kubernetes
- **added** — Admin API endpoint to cancel in-progress controller reconfiguration

#### Redpanda v26.2 Release Notes

##### Features

- Redpanda Enterprise (excludes Redpanda BYOC/Dedicated/Serverless) now supports major version rollback via ‘unfinalized’ upgrades.  `rpk cluster upgrade finalize` and `rpk cluster upgrade status` manage deferred (unfinalized) major-version upgrades. ([\#30930](https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/pull/30930))  
- Shadowing from non-Redpanda Schema Registries using the HTTP Schema Registry API. rpk shadow provides support for the new Schema Registry Sync option `shadow_schema_registry_api` in Shadow Links. ([\#30860](https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/pull/30860))  
- Schema Registry sync shadow links now enforce the link's `max_source_requests_per_second` setting (default 30 requests/sec) when reading from the source registry, and honor a throttling source's `Retry-After` response header. ([\#31101](https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/pull/31101))  
- Schema Registry shadowing now exports its sync totals as `shadow_link_schema_registry_*` counters on the internal and public metrics endpoints, labelled by `shadow_link_name`. ([\#31067](https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/pull/31067))  
- Shadow links can now mirror RBAC roles from the source cluster to the destination. Configure role sync on the link with a sync interval and role-name filters to select which roles are kept in sync. ([\#30946](https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/pull/30946))  
- rpk now supports `role_sync_options` when creating a Shadow Link. ([\#30909](https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/pull/30909))  
- Shadowing now supports Cloud Topics. ([\#30073](https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/pull/30073))  
- Tiered Storage V2 beta.  A new `default_redpanda_storage_mode_tiered_impl` cluster config (`tiered_v1` | `tiered_v2`, default `tiered_v1`) selects whether the `tiered` value of the `redpanda.storage.mode` topic property refers to classic Tiered Storage or the new version of tiered storage. **Tiered Storage v2 is a beta feature in v26.2.** ([\#30966](https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/pull/30966))  
- New read-only `redpanda.storage.mode.impl` topic property reports the exact implementation of every topic's storage mode (`unset`|`local`|`tiered_v1`|`tiered_v2`|`cloud`), and can be supplied on topic creation to select the storage mode precisely. Topics using the `tiered_v2` implementation (beta) can only be created once the whole cluster runs v26.2. ([\#30966](https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/pull/30966))  
- Schema Registry context support is now enabled by default. Subjects of the form `:.context:subject` are parsed into a separate context. See the [upgrade considerations](https://docs.redpanda.com/current/manage/schema-reg/schema-reg-contexts/#upgrade-considerations) before upgrading clusters that may have stored literal `:.`\-prefixed subject names. ([\#30365](https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/pull/30365))  
- Schema Registry now accepts `/contexts/{context}/...` prefixed URLs on all endpoints, allowing serde clients to target a non-default context by configuring their base URL (e.g. `schema.registry.url=http://host:8081/contexts/.myctx`). ([\#30189](https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/pull/30189))  
- Add OAUTHBEARER SASL mechanism support to rpk, enabling OIDC-based authentication for the Kafka client, admin API, and schema registry. Pass the token via `--password` (raw value or `token:<TOKEN>` format) with `--sasl-mechanism OAUTHBEARER`. ([\#30169](https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/pull/30169))  
- [\#30222](https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/issues/30222) Add OAUTHBEARER SASL mechanism support to the admin API endpoint used by `rpk debug remote-bundle start`, enabling remote debug bundle collection against clusters configured with OAUTHBEARER authentication. ([\#30225](https://github.com/redpanda-data/redpanda/pull/30225))  
- `rpk debug remote-bundle start` now supports OAUTHBEARER (OIDC) profiles. Pa

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