#### Auth

- The Rancher credential provider has now been removed. This only affects you if you are using the downstream Rancher distro. ([#77099](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/77099), [@dims](https://github.com/dims))


#### AWS

 - The flag `--experimental-patches` is now deprecated and will be removed in a future release. You can migrate to using the new flag `--patches`. Add a new field `{Init|Join}Configuration.patches.directory` that can be used for the same purpose. For `init` and `join` it is now recommended that you migrate to configure patches via `{Init|Join}Configuration.patches.directory`. For the time being, these flags can be mixed with `--config`, but that...

### Feature

- 'kubeadm: enhanced the "patches" functionality to be able to patch coredns
  deployment. The new patch target is called "corednsdeployment" (e.g. patch file
  "corednsdeployment+json.json"). This makes it possible to apply custom patches

* Added a feature gate for the plugin watcher. ([#64605](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/64605), [@vikaschoudhary16](https://github.com/vikaschoudhary16))

  
  - https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/kustomize/pull/4911: Drop support for a very old, legacy style of patches. patches used to be allowed to be used as an alias for patchesStrategicMerge in kustomize v3. You now have to use patchesStrategicMerge explicitly, or update to the new syntax supported by patches. See examples in the PR description of https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/kustomize/pull/4911.

### Bug or Regression

- EndpointSlice IP validation now matches Endpoints IP validation. ([#101084](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/101084), [@robscott](https://github.com/robscott)) [SIG Apps and Network]

incorrect. If watching objects with a filter, when an update was made that no longer matched the filter a DELETE event was correctly sent. However, the object that was returned by that delete was not the (correct) version before the update, but instead, the newer version. That meant the new object was not matched by the filter. This was a regression from behavior between cached watches on the server side and uncached watches, and thus broke downstream API clients. ([#46223](https://github.com/kubernete...

### Network

- kube-apiserver: fixed a bug that could cause a goroutine leak if the apiserver encountered an encoding error serving a watch to a websocket watcher ([#84693](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/84693), [@tedyu](https://github.com/tedyu))

- Implement a new feature that allows applying kustomize patches to static pod manifests generated by kubeadm. ([#80905](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/80905), [@fabriziopandini](https://gi...