- [alpha: kubectl apply --prune --applyset] Enabled certain custom resources (CRs) to be used as `ApplySet` parent objects. To enable this for a given CR, apply the label `applyset.kubernetes.io/is-parent-type: true` to the CustomResourceDefinition (CRD) that defines it. ([#116353](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/116353), [@KnVerey](https://github.com/KnVerey))

    * Remove metadata agent config maps in favor of command line flags.
    * Update the metadata agent's liveness probe to a new /healthz handler.
    * Logging Agent Improvements
    * Bump logging agent version to 0.2-1.5.33-1-k8s-1.
    * Appropriately set log severity for k8s_container.
    * Fix detect exceptions plugin to analyze message field instead of log field.

* Bump ip-masq-agent to v2.1.1 ([#67916](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/67916), [@MrHohn](https://github.com/MrHohn))
    * - Update debian-iptables image for CVEs.
    * - Change chain name to IP-MASQ to be compatible with the
    * pre-injected masquerade rules.

  Don't use these flags. Using deprecated flags causes the server to print a warning. Using a removed flag causes the server to abort the startup.

* The following deprecated flags were removed from `kubelet`:

  * `api-servers` - add apiserver addresses to the kubeconfig file instead.

  Don't use these flags. Using deprecated flags causes the kubelet to print a warning. Using a removed flag causes the kubelet to abort the startup.

- Gracefully delete nodes when their parent scale set went missing ([#95289](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/95289), [@bpineau](https://github.com/bpineau)) [SIG Cloud Provider]

- Kubeadm: graduate the "kubeadm alpha certs" command to a parent command "kubeadm certs". The command "kubeadm alpha certs" is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Please migrate. ([#94938](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/94938), [@yagonobre](https://github.com/yagonobre)) [SIG Cluster...

- Kubeadm: added support for the flag `--print-manifest` to the addon phases `kube-proxy` and `coredns` of `kubeadm init phase addon`. If this flag is `usedkubeadm` will not apply a given addon and instead print to the terminal the API objects that will be applied. ([#109995](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/109995), [@wangyysde](https://github.com/wangyysde))

### Bug or Regression

- Bug: client-go clientset was not defaulting the user agent, using the default golang agent for all the requests. ([#108791](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/108791), [@aojea](https://github.com/aojea)) [SIG API Machinery and Instrumentation]

## Changes by Kind

### Bug or Regression

- Fix memory leak on kube-scheduler preemption ([#111805](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/111805), [@amewayne](https://github.com/amewayne)) [SIG Scheduling]
- If the parent directory of the file specified in the `--audit-log-path` argument does not exist, Kubernetes now creates it. ([#111227](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/111227), [@vpnachev](https://github.com/vpnachev)) [SIG Auth]

Kubeadm: improve the strict parsing of user YAML/JSON configuration files. Next to printing warnings for unknown and duplicate fields (current state), also print warnings for fields with incorrect case sensitivity - e.g. `controlPlaneEndpoint` (valid), `ControlPlaneEndpoint` (invalid). Instead of only printing warnings during `init` and `join` also print warnings when downloading the ClusterConfiguration, KubeletConfiguration or KubeProxyConfiguration objects from the cluster. This can be useful if the...