- Fixed an issue that prevented restart policies and restart rules from being applied to static pods. ([#135031](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/135031), [@yuanwang04](https://github.com/yuanwang04))

- Fixed a race condition that could result in erroneous volume unmounts for flex volume plugins during kubelet restart. ([#127669](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/127669), [@olyazavr](https://github.com/olyazavr))
- Fixed a race condition that could result in erroneous volume unmounts for flex volume plugins on kubelet restart. ([#128495](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/128495), [@olyazavr](https://github.com/olyazavr))

- Terminated Pods on a node will not be re-admitted on kubelet restart. This fixes the problem of Completed Pods awaiting for the finalizer marked as Failed after the kubelet restart. ([#127209](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/127209), [@SergeyKanzhelev](https://github.com/SergeyKanzhelev)) [SIG Node and Testing]

## Dependencies

### Added
_Nothing has changed._

- Created a new `kubectl rollout restart` command that does a rolling restart of a deployment. ([#76062](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/76062), [@apelisse](https://github.com/apelisse))

- Fixed a startup probe race condition that caused main containers to remain stuck in "Initializing" state when sidecar containers with startup probes failed initially but succeeded on restart in pods with restartPolicy=Never. ([#134801](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/134801), [@yuanwang04](https://github.com/yuanwang04)) [SIG Node and Testing]

- Added a mechanism for configurable container restarts: _container-level restart rules_. This was an alpha feature behind the `ContainerRestartRules` feature gate. ([#132642](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/132642), [@yuanwang04](https://github.com/yuanwang04)) [SIG API Machinery, Apps, Node and Testing]...

- Terminated Pods on a node will not be re-admitted on kubelet restart. This fixes the problem of Completed Pods awaiting for the finalizer marked as Failed after the kubelet restart. ([#127210](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/127210), [@SergeyKanzhelev](https://github.com/SergeyKanzhelev)) [SIG Node and Testing]

## Dependencies

- Static pods were taking extra time to be restarted after being updated.  Static pods that are waiting to restart were not correctly counted in `kubelet_working_pods`. ([#116995](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/116995), [@sma...

    *   Passes sourcesReady from kubelet to the device plugin to avoid removing inactive pods during the grace period of kubelet restart.
    *   Extends the gpu_device_plugin e2e_node test to verify that scheduled pods can continue to run even after a device plugin deletion and kubelet restart.

* Fix a bug where kubelet would not retry pod sandbox creation when the restart policy of the pod is Never ([#79451](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/79451), [@yujuhong](https://github.com/yujuhong))