- Ensure all vSphere nodes are are tracked by volume attach-detach controller ([#96689](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/96689), [@gnufied](https://github.com/gnufied))
- Ensure empty string annotations are copied over in rollbacks. ([#94858](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/94858), [@waynepeking348](https://github.com/waynepeking348))

* Ensure IP is set for Azure internal load balancer. ([#59083](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/59083), [@feiskyer](https://github.com/feiskyer))

* kubeadm - Ensure the peer port is secured by explicitly setting the peer URLs for the default etcd instance. ([#64988](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/64988), [@detiber](https://github.com/detiber))
    * kubeadm - Ensure that the etcd certificates are generated using a proper CN

* Ensure directories on volumes are group-executable when using fsGroup ([#73533](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/73533), [@mxey](https://github.com/mxey))

* fix race condition issue for smb mount on windows ([#75371](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/75371), [@andyzhangx](https://github.com/andyzhangx))
* Ensure the backend pools are set correctly for Azure SLB with multiple backend pools (e.g. outbound rules) ([#76691](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/76691), [@feiskyer](https://github.com/feiskyer))

- Bump distroless-iptables to 0.2.8 based on Go 1.20.11 ([#121975](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/121975), [@cpanato](https://github.com/cpanato)) [SIG Testing]
- Makefile and scripts now respect GOTOOLCHAIN and otherwise ensure ./.go-version is used ([#122076](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/122076), [@BenTheElder](https://github.com/BenTheElder)) [SIG Release and Testing]

## Dependencies

### Added
_Nothing has changed._

- Ensure backoff step is set to 1 for Azure armclient. ([#94180](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/94180), [@feiskyer](https://github.com/feiskyer)) [SIG Cloud Provider]

* Kubernetes 1.12 also enables [Kubelet device plugin registration](https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/595) feature by default. Before upgrading to 1.12, ensure the `driver-registrar` CSI sidecar container for your CSI driver is configured to handle...

    ```yaml
    kind: NetworkPolicy
    apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
    metadata:
      name: default-deny
    spec:
      podSelector:
    ```

	This will ensure that Pods that aren't matched by any other NetworkPolicy will continue to be fully-isolated, as they were in v1beta1.

* If you need to downgrade from 1.10 to 1.9.x, downgrade to v1.9.6 to ensure PV and PVC objects can be deleted properly.

* In-place node upgrades to this release from versions 1.7.14, 1.8.9, and 1.9.4 are not supported if using subpath volumes with PVCs.  Such pods should be drained from the node first.