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    Container Service for Kubernetes:Deploy and manage Knative components

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    Container Service for Kubernetes:Deploy and manage Knative components

    Last Updated:Mar 26, 2026

    ACK Knative is fully compatible with open-source Knative and lets you deploy serverless applications without purchasing or managing infrastructure. Use the ACK console to deploy Knative, install core components and add-ons, and upgrade Knative Serving.

    Prerequisites

    Before you begin, make sure you have:

    • An ACK managed cluster or ACK dedicated cluster running Kubernetes 1.28 or later

    • At least three worker nodes configured for the cluster

    If your cluster runs an earlier version, see Manually upgrade an ACK cluster.

    Deploy Knative

    1. Log on to the ACK console. In the left-side navigation pane, click Clusters.

    2. On the Clusters page, find and click the name of your cluster. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Applications > Knative.

    3. On the Components tab, click Deploy Knative, select a gateway, and then click Deploy. Before selecting a gateway, use the following table to compare your options. For detailed guidance, see Select an Ingress for Knative. After deployment, click Go to Components to check component status or Go to Services to view Knative Services.

      Gateway Management model Protocol support Key constraint
      ALB Fully managed HTTP, HTTPS, QUIC; automatic certificate discovery Requires at least two vSwitches. For supported regions, see Regions and zones where ALB is available.
      MSE Cloud-native gateway-based Compatible with NGINX Ingress and 50+ annotations Covers 90%+ of NGINX Ingress use cases; supports multiple concurrent canary releases
      ASM Fully managed Istio-based service mesh Suited for inter-service traffic governance
      Kourier Self-managed Basic routing Deployed in your cluster; requires manual maintenance. For ACK Serverless clusters, enable Alibaba Cloud DNS PrivateZone or CoreDNS.

      Deployment result

    Manage components after deployment

    After deploying Knative, you can manage individual components from the Components tab:

    • Deploy a component: Find a component with the status Not Deployed and click Deploy in the Actions column. Click Confirm in the dialog.

    • Uninstall a component: Find the component and click Uninstall in the Actions column. Click Confirm in the dialog.

      Important

      Uninstalling a component deletes all associated CustomResourceDefinitions (CRDs) and Knative Services. This action cannot be undone.

    • Uninstall Knative: Click Uninstall in the upper-right corner. In the dialog, select I confirm that I have read the above information and want to uninstall Knative and click OK.

    Deploy a Knative component

    Knative Serving and Knative Eventing are the two core components. Optional add-ons extend functionality with event source integrations such as GitHub and Kafka.

    1. Log on to the ACK console. In the left-side navigation pane, click Clusters.

    2. On the Clusters page, find and click the name of your cluster. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Applications > Knative.

    3. On the Components tab, find a component with the status Not Deployed and click Deploy in the Actions column. Click Confirm in the dialog. When the Status column shows Deployed, the component is ready. To uninstall a component, click Uninstall in the Actions column.

      Important

      Uninstalling a component deletes all associated CustomResourceDefinitions (CRDs) and Knative Services. This action cannot be undone.

    Upgrade Knative Serving

    Knative Serving manages serverless workloads, including application deployment, version management, traffic-based auto scaling, and canary releases. When idle, it scales pods to zero.

    Only managed Knative can be upgraded. For release notes, see Knative release notes.

    1. Log on to the ACK console. In the left-side navigation pane, click Clusters.

    2. On the Clusters page, find and click the name of your cluster. In the left-side navigation pane, choose Operations > Add-ons.

    3. On the Add-ons page, find knative in the Others section and follow the prompts to upgrade. The upgrade result is displayed after the process completes.

    What's next

    References