OpenShift 4.22 lets your pods mount container images as volumes

Whenever Red Hat releases a new version of OpenShift, our team works through the release notes and asks one simple question: what does this actually mean for the people running their applications on VSHN Managed OpenShift?

OpenShift 4.22 has been available since June 9th, 2026. It’s based on Kubernetes 1.35 and CRI-O 1.35, and the Red Hat CoreOS (RHCOS) image now uses RHEL 9.8 packages, which bring the latest fixes, enhancements, hardware support and driver updates. VSHN Managed OpenShift clusters currently run 4.21, and we’ve started testing 4.22. Here’s what you can look forward to.

Good news for developers: static data in its own image

Some applications rely on large amounts of static data. With OpenShift 4.22, that data can be distributed in a separate container image and mounted straight into your pods as a volume, opening the door to new ways of structuring applications.

Under the hood, this works with OCI images and artifacts. These let you store and distribute arbitrary files and metadata through OCI-compliant registries, the same kind of registries that hold your container images.

More flexibility with Gateway API

Until now, OpenShift blocked any attempt to install Gateway API resources from the experimental channel. With 4.22, that restriction is gone, which gives you more flexibility in adopting Gateway API.

Behind the scenes: one reboot less, safer updates

Some improvements you won’t notice directly, but they make the platform run more smoothly.

New worker nodes used to start in the generic worker machine config pool and then had to be moved to their actual target pool, which required an extra reboot. With 4.22, new nodes boot directly into their target pool, saving one reboot cycle during provisioning.

OpenShift also keeps a closer eye on the images nodes boot from. On supported infrastructures, the Machine Config Operator checks whether a node’s boot image is too old. If it is, OpenShift blocks cluster updates until the boot image has been updated.

A good release for vSphere users

If your OpenShift runs on VMware vSphere, two features are now generally available:

• Zones for vSphere host groups: OpenShift failure domains can be mapped to vSphere host groups, enabling seamless use of the high availability offered by a vSphere stretched cluster. The feature was introduced as a technology preview in OpenShift 4.19.
• Boot image management for worker nodes: the node boot image is now updated automatically during cluster updates. New nodes created afterwards are based on the new version, while existing nodes aren’t affected.

What doesn’t affect you

• runC is deprecated: OpenShift 4.22 deprecates the runc container runtime for CRI-O. All VSHN Managed OpenShift clusters use CRI-O with the default crun runtime, so this doesn’t affect our clusters.
• RHCOS 10.2 as technology preview: OpenShift 4.22 supports RHCOS 10.2 as a technology preview. We’ll start testing RHCOS 10 internally, but won’t update any customer clusters until RHCOS 10 is generally available for OpenShift.

What happens next

We’re currently testing OpenShift 4.22, and our plan is to have all clusters running 4.22 before the end of the year.

Want all the details? Our engineers’ summary is in the VSHN Knowledge Base, and Red Hat’s complete OpenShift Container Platform 4.22 release notes cover everything else.

Questions? Get in touch – we’re always happy to talk OpenShift.