CoreDNS - Container Service for Kubernetes - Alibaba Cloud Documentation Center

CoreDNS is the default Domain Name System (DNS) service discovery plugin for ACK clusters and ACK Edge clusters. ACK Serverless clusters also use the CoreDNS component for service discovery. This topic introduces the CoreDNS component, explains how to use it, and provides its change log.

Component introduction

CoreDNS is the component in a Kubernetes cluster that handles DNS resolution. It resolves custom service domain names within the cluster and external domain names. The CoreDNS project is hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). For more information about CoreDNS, see CoreDNS: DNS and Service Discovery.

CoreDNS supports two editions: unmanaged and managed. For more information, see Service discovery DNS.

For more information about the mapping between CoreDNS versions and cluster versions, see CoreDNS version in Kubernetes.

Usage instructions

For information about the features and usage of CoreDNS, see Configure DNS policies and domain name resolution.

Important

Before you upgrade CoreDNS, note the following:

Read the CoreDNS upgrade instructions. For more information, see Automatic CoreDNS upgrades.
Back up the CoreDNS configuration item in the kube-system namespace.

Change log

Unmanaged edition

Version number	Applicable clusters	Image address	Change date	Changes	Impact
v1.12.1.2	For clusters of version 1.21 and later.	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:v1.12.1.2	October 10, 2025	Optimizations: The `aliyun` suffix is removed from the component version number. The default configuration of `serve_stale` for the `cache` plugin is optimized to `serve_stale 30s verify`.	This upgrade does not affect your services.
v1.12.1.1-4035d7a99-aliyun	For clusters of version 1.21 and later.	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:v1.12.1.1-4035d7a99-aliyun	July 22, 2025	Updated to the community v1.12.1. Added the multisocket plugin. Increased the canonical name (CNAME) lookup limit from 7 to 10. plugin/kubernetes: Fixed an issue where DNS queries were resolved to deleted pods due to DeletionTimestamp (#7119) (#7131). plugin/kubernetes: Reverted the change "Only create PTR records for endpoints with a hostname (#6898)". plugin/forward: Added the `failfast_all_unhealthy_upstreams` option. This option returns `servfail` when all upstream servers are shut down. The `serve_stale` configuration is enabled by default for the `cache` plugin. When an upstream DNS server is unavailable, CoreDNS can use an expired cache to respond to queries (the TTL of the response is 0) and asynchronously tries to get the latest address for the domain name.	This upgrade does not affect your services.
v1.11.3.5-5321daf49-aliyun	For clusters of version 1.21 and later.	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:v1.11.3.5-5321daf49-aliyun	March 19, 2025	Updated the base image to fix related security vulnerabilities. Added support for Node Lingjun pools. CoreDNS pods are not scheduled to Node Lingjun nodes.	This upgrade does not affect your services.
v1.11.3.2-f57ea7ed6-aliyun	For clusters of version 1.21 and later.	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:v1.11.3.2-f57ea7ed6-aliyun	October 21, 2024	CoreDNS now supports the Firewall plugin. The Forward plugin supports executing the next plugin based on the return code. You can customize the topology constraint options for CoreDNS component deployments on the Operations Management > Component Management page in the console.	This upgrade does not affect your services.
v1.9.3.16-4341f22f-aliyun	For ACK Serverless clusters of version 1.20.4 and later only.	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:v1.9.3.16-4341f22f-aliyun	May 9, 2023	The default memory request for scheduling CoreDNS containers is increased to 4 Gi to prevent CoreDNS from being scheduled to shared instances. You can customize the memory size in the component configuration.	The upgrade may result in the use of higher ECI specifications when you create CoreDNS.
v1.9.3.10-7dfca203-aliyun	For clusters of version 1.20.4 and later.	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:v1.9.3.10-7dfca203-aliyun	April 3, 2023	Optimized zone-level anti-affinity scheduling. Reduced the possibility of pod eviction in elastic node scenarios.	Due to the scheduling policy adjustment, if all schedulable nodes in the cluster are in a single zone, CoreDNS replicas may fail to be scheduled and the component upgrade may fail. To ensure DNS availability, scale out your cluster and distribute the schedulable nodes across multiple zones. This ensures that CoreDNS replicas can be scheduled and run.
v1.9.3.6-32932850-aliyun	For clusters of version 1.20.4 and later.	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:v1.9.3.6-32932850-aliyun	August 25, 2022	Supports the delivery of Kubernetes events. In ACK Serverless clusters, the default CPU request is changed to 2 cores.	This upgrade does not affect your services.
v1.9.3.2-8850b5e7-aliyun	For clusters of version 1.20.4 and later.	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:v1.9.3.2-8850b5e7-aliyun	August 3, 2022	You can enable the CoreDNS log collection feature in Log Service with a single click.	This upgrade does not affect your services.
v1.9.3.1-5e7ba42d-aliyun	For clusters of version 1.20.4 and later.	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:v1.9.3.1-5e7ba42d-aliyun	July 11, 2022	Fixed some issues and added some features. For more information, see CoreDNS-1.9.3 Release. Supports ACK One multi-cluster services.	This upgrade does not affect your services.
v1.8.4.5-2ce07fd2-aliyun	For clusters of version 1.20.4 and later.	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:v1.8.4.5-2ce07fd2-aliyun	April 8, 2022	Optimized the CoreDNS scheduling affinity configuration to allow all cluster nodes to be elastic scaling nodes.	This upgrade does not affect your services.
v1.8.4.3-644f4735-aliyun	For clusters of version 1.20.4 and later.	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:v1.8.4.3-644f4735-aliyun	February 22, 2022	Disabled caching for resolution results of the ServError type. Changed anti-affinity scheduling by hostname from preferred to required. This enforces anti-affinity scheduling by node.	Because replica anti-affinity scheduling by node is enforced, some CoreDNS replicas will be in the Pending state if the number of CoreDNS replicas is greater than the number of nodes. Before you upgrade to this version, scale out the cluster nodes or scale in the CoreDNS replicas.
v1.8.4.2-7d597cff-aliyun	For clusters of version 1.20.4 and later.	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:v1.8.4.2-3a376cc-aliyun	January 10, 2022	Added support for custom parameters. Enabled resolution logs by default.	This upgrade does not affect your services.
v1.8.4.1-3a376cc-aliyun	For clusters of version 1.20.4 and later.	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:v1.8.4.1-3a376cc-aliyun	October 26, 2021	Supports listening for EndpointSlices resources. Supports DNS queries using IPv6 addresses.	This upgrade does not affect your services.
v1.7.0.0-f59c03d-aliyun	For clusters of version 1.14.8 and later.	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:v1.7.0.0-f59c03d-aliyun	July 8, 2021	Modified the default graceful shutdown time for CoreDNS and the container memory limit in the CoreDNS deployment. Updated metric names. If your monitoring system depends on CoreDNS metrics, make sure to modify them. For more information, see Metric Changes. Fixed an issue where the Forward plugin used only the first upstream DNS server. Removed compatibility for the deprecated Upstream plugin. If the Corefile configuration item contains the Upstream plugin, the Upstream plugin is safely and automatically deleted during the upgrade.	If you previously modified the DNS configuration file /etc/resolv.conf on an ECS instance, upgrading or rebuilding a CoreDNS pod causes it to use the modified /etc/resolv.conf file. Before you upgrade, make sure that all DNS servers in the configuration are working properly.
1.6.7.edge (Discontinued)	-	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:1.6.7.edge	April 23, 2021	Built based on the community version 1.6.7. For more information, see CoreDNS-1.6.7 Release.	This upgrade does not affect your services.
v1.7.0	-	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:1.7.0	March 18, 2021	Removed compatibility for the deprecated Upstream plugin. If the Corefile configuration item contains the Upstream plugin, the Upstream plugin is safely and automatically deleted during the upgrade. Updated metric names. If your monitoring system depends on CoreDNS metrics, make sure to modify them. For more information, see Metric Changes. Fixed an issue where the Forward plugin used only the first upstream DNS server.	If you previously modified the DNS configuration file /etc/resolv.conf on an ECS instance, upgrading or rebuilding a CoreDNS pod causes it to use the modified /etc/resolv.conf file. Before you upgrade, make sure that all DNS servers in the configuration are working properly.
v1.6.7 (Discontinued)	-	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:1.6.7	November 28, 2018	Built based on the community version 1.6.7. For more information, see CoreDNS-1.6.7 Release.	This upgrade does not affect your services.

Managed edition

Version number	Applicable clusters	Image address	Change date	Changes	Impact
v1.12.1.2	For clusters of version 1.21 and later.	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:v1.12.1.2	October 10, 2025	Optimizations: Updated to the community v1.12.1. In clusters where the IPv6 dual-stack feature is not enabled, queries for AAAA records directly return `nodata`. The multisocket plugin is enabled by default to enhance performance.	This upgrade does not affect your services.
v1.11.3.2-f57ea7ed6-aliyun	For clusters of version 1.21 and later.	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:v1.11.3.2-f57ea7ed6-aliyun	October 21, 2024	CoreDNS now supports the Firewall plugin. The Forward plugin supports executing the next plugin based on the return code. You can customize the topology constraint options for CoreDNS component deployments on the Operations Management > Component Management page in the console.	This upgrade does not affect your services.
v1.9.3.10-7dfca203-aliyun	For clusters of version 1.20.4 and later.	registry.{{.Region}}.aliyuncs.com/acs/coredns:v1.9.3.10-7dfca203-aliyun	April 3, 2023	Optimized zone-level anti-affinity scheduling. Reduced the possibility of pod eviction in elastic node scenarios.	Due to the scheduling policy adjustment, if all schedulable nodes in the cluster are in a single zone, CoreDNS replicas may fail to be scheduled and the component upgrade may fail. To ensure DNS availability, scale out your cluster and distribute the schedulable nodes across multiple zones. This ensures that CoreDNS replicas can be scheduled and run.