Add Flux 2.4 blog post

Signed-off-by: Stefan Prodan <[email protected]>

content/en/blog/2024-09-30-announcing-flux-v2.4.0/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,163 @@
+---
+author: Stefan Prodan
+date: 2024-09-30 12:00:00+00:00
+title: Announcing Flux 2.4 GA
+description: "We are thrilled to announce the release of Flux v2.4.0! Here you will find highlights of new features and improvements in this release."
+url: /blog/2024/09/flux-v2.4.0/
+tags: [announcement]
+resources:
+- src: "**.{png,jpg}"
+  title: "Image #:counter"
+---
+
+We are thrilled to announce the release of [Flux v2.4.0](https://github.com/fluxcd/flux2/releases/tag/v2.4.0)!
+In this post, we will highlight some of the new features and improvements included in this release.
+
+![](featured-image.png)
+
+## General availability of Flux S3-compatible Source API
+
+This release marks the General Availability (GA) of Flux `Bucket` API which allows storing
+the desired state of Kubernetes clusters in S3-compatible storage services such as
+Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, Google Cloud Storage, Alibaba Cloud, MinIO, and others.
+
+The `Bucket` v1 API comes with new features including: proxy support, mTLS and custom STS
+configuration for AWS S3 and MinIO LDAP authentication.
+
+New fields in the `source.toollkit.fluxcd.io/v1` API:
+
+- `.spec.proxySecretRef` allows configuring HTTP/S Proxy authentication for the S3-compatible storage service.
+- `.spec.certSecretRef` allows custom TLS client certificate and CA for secure communication with the S3-compatible storage service.
+- `.spec.sts` allows custom STS configuration for AWS S3 and MinIO LDAP authentication.
+
+For more details, please see the [Bucket documentation](/flux/components/source/buckets/).
+
+To upgrade, make sure the new CRDs and controllers are deployed, and then change the manifests in Git:
+
+1. Set  `apiVersion: source.toolkit.fluxcd.io/v1` in the YAML files that contain `Bucket` definitions.
+2. Commit, push and reconcile the API version changes.
+
+Bumping the APIs version in manifests can be done gradually.
+It is advised to not delay this procedure as the deprecated versions will be removed after 6 months.
+
+## Azure DevOps OIDC Authentication
+
+Starting with Flux v2.4, you can configure source-controller and image-automation-controller
+to authenticate against Azure DevOps repositories using AKS Workload Identity.
+
+Instead of using Azure personal access tokens or SSH keys that require manual rotation,
+you can now use OIDC tokens to authenticate against Azure DevOps repositories by leveraging
+Kubernetes Workload Identity. 
+
+For more details on how to configure the Azure DevOps OIDC authentication, see the
+[GitRepository API documentation](https://fluxcd.io/flux/components/source/gitrepositories/#provider).
+
+## Controller Improvements
+
+- The `OCIRepository` v1beta2 API gains support for proxy configuration thus allowing
+  dedicated [HTTP/S Proxy](/flux/components/source/ocirepositories/#proxy-secret-reference)
+  authentication on multi-tenant Kubernetes clusters.
+- The `HelmRelease` v2 API gains support for disabling JSON schema validation of the Helm release values
+  during installation and upgrade. And allows adopting existing Kubernetes resources during Helm release
+  installation.
+- The notification-controller allows transitioning the Microsoft Teams alerting from the deprecated
+  Office 365 connector to the new [Adaptive Card format](/flux/components/notification/providers/#microsoft-teams).
+- The Flux Kustomization and HelmRelease APIs now support defining dependencies between resources
+  managed by different controller shards.
+
+## CLI Improvements
+
+- A new command was added, `flux create secret proxy` that can be used to generate a Kubernetes Secret
+  for HTTP/S Proxy authentication referenced by `Bucket`, `GitRepository` and `OCIRepository`. 
+- The `flux create source git` command now supports the `--provider=azure` flag to configure OIDC authentication
+  for Azure DevOps repositories.
+- The `flux diff kustomization` command now supports the `--recursive` flag to recursively diff encountered Kustomizations.
+- On Windows, the Flux CLI can now be installed using the WinGet tool by running `winget install -e --id FluxCD.Flux`.
+
+## Supported Versions
+
+Flux v2.1 has reached end-of-life and is no longer supported.
+
+Flux v2.4 supports the following Kubernetes versions:
+
+| Distribution | Versions         |
+|:-------------|:-----------------|
+| Kubernetes   | 1.29, 1.30, 1.31 |
+| OpenShift    | 4.16             |
+
+{{% alert color="info" title="Enterprise support" %}}
+Note that the CNCF Flux project offers support only for the latest
+three minor versions of Kubernetes.
+
+Backwards compatibility with older versions of Kubernetes and OpenShift is offered by vendors
+such as [ControlPlane](https://control-plane.io/enterprise-for-flux-cd/) that provide
+enterprise support for Flux.
+{{% /alert %}}
+
+## Flux Operator and OpenShift Compatibility
+
+Flux can be installed on Red Hat OpenShift cluster directly from
+[OperatorHub](https://operatorhub.io/operator/flux-operator) or by using the
+[Flux Operator Helm chart](https://artifacthub.io/packages/helm/flux-operator/flux-operator).
+
+The [Flux Operator](https://github.com/controlplaneio-fluxcd/flux-operator)
+is an open-source project developed by ControlPlane that offers an alternative to the
+Flux Bootstrap procedure, it removes the operational burden of managing Flux across
+fleets of clusters by fully automating the installation, configuration, and upgrade
+of the Flux controllers based on a declarative API.
+
+The operator simplifies the configuration of Flux multi-tenancy lockdown, sharding,
+horizontal and vertical scaling, persistent storage, and allows fine-tuning
+the Flux controllers with Kustomize patches. The operator streamlines the
+transition from Git as the delivery mechanism for the cluster desired state
+to OCI artifacts and S3-compatible storage.
+
+After installing the Flux Operator on OpenShift, you can deploy the Flux controllers
+using the `FluxInstance` custom resource e.g.:
+
+```yaml
+apiVersion: fluxcd.controlplane.io/v1
+kind: FluxInstance
+metadata:
+  name: flux
+spec:
+  distribution:
+    version: "2.x"
+    registry: "ghcr.io/fluxcd"
+    artifact: "oci://ghcr.io/controlplaneio-fluxcd/flux-operator-manifests:latest"
+  components:
+    - source-controller
+    - kustomize-controller
+    - helm-controller
+    - notification-controller
+    - image-reflector-controller
+    - image-automation-controller
+  cluster:
+    type: openshift
+    multitenant: true
+    networkPolicy: true
+    domain: "cluster.local"
+  sharding:
+    shards: [ "shard1", "shard2" ]
+  sync:
+    kind: OCIRepository
+    url: "oci://ghcr.io/my-org/my-fleet-manifests"
+    ref: "latest"
+    path: "clusters/my-cluster"
+    pullSecret: "flux-system"
+```
+
+For more details on how to use configure Flux using the operator, please see the
+[Flux Operator documentation](https://fluxcd.control-plane.io/operator/).
+
+## Over and out
+
+If you have any questions, or simply just like what you read and want to get involved,
+here are a few good ways to reach us:
+
+- Join our [upcoming dev meetings](https://fluxcd.io/community/#meetings).
+- Join the [Flux mailing list](https://lists.cncf.io/g/cncf-flux-dev) and let us know what you need help with.
+- Talk to us in the #flux channel on [CNCF Slack](https://slack.cncf.io/).
+- Join the [planning discussions](https://github.com/fluxcd/flux2/discussions).
+- Follow [Flux on Twitter](https://twitter.com/fluxcd), or join the
+  [Flux LinkedIn group](https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8985374/).