Cilium 1.19, Network Policy enhancements, Multi Pool IPAM goes stable, IPv6 progress, and more!

Cilium 1.19 is a major release focused on secure connectivity and operational clarity for Kubernetes networking. Key highlights include: BPF Host Routing now compatible with IPsec for high-performance encrypted traffic; Gateway API v1.4 support with native GRPCRoute; IPv6 L2 announcements via Neighbor Discovery; IPv6 underlay support for dual-stack tunneling; Multi-Pool IPAM graduating to stable with label selector support, IPsec compatibility, and masquerade tuning; host firewall support for VRRP and IGMP protocols; configurable ICMP responses for denied egress; DNS policy wildcards with the new `**.` prefix for multi-level subdomain matching; initial Ztunnel integration for ambient mesh-style transparent encryption (beta); IP packet tracing via Hubble; Hubble flow log aggregation to reduce export volume; and filtering Hubble flows by encryption status. BGP improvements include interface address advertisement, stable source IP binding, and empty service route withdrawal. Helm charts are now published as OCI artifacts. The release includes 2,934 commits from over 1,010 developers.