### **Scheduling**

*   Taint key `unreachable` is now in GA.
*   Taint key `notReady` is changed to `not-ready`, and is also now in GA.
*   These changes are automatically updated for taints. Tolerations for these taints must be updated manually. Specifically, you must:
    *   Change `node.alpha.kubernetes.io/notReady` to `node.kubernetes.io/not-ready`
    *   Change `node.alpha.kubernetes.io/unreachable` to  `node.kubernetes.io/unreachable`

- **[alpha]** Represent node problems "not ready" and "unreachable" using `NoExecute` taints. In combination with `tolerationSeconds` described below, this allows per-pod specification of how long to remain bound to a node that becomes unreachable or not ready, rather than using the default of 5 minutes. You can enable this alpha feature by including `TaintBasedEvictions=true` in `--feature-gates`,...

- The deprecated taints `node.alpha.kubernetes.io/notReady` and `node.alpha.kubernetes.io/unreachable` are no longer supported or adjusted. These uses should be replaced with `node.kubernetes.io/not-ready` and `node.kubernetes.io/unreachable`
 ([#73001](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/73001), [@shivnagarajan](https://github.com/shivnagarajan))

#### Node controller
* Bug fixes:

  * Fix [transition between NotReady and Unreachable taints](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/43444). ([#44042](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/44042), [@gmarek](https://github.com/gmarek))


#### Node Components

* Features

- Reduced the 5s delay before tainting `node.kubernetes.io/unreachable:NoExecute` when a Node became unreachable. ([#120816](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/120816), [@tnqn](https://github.com/tnqn)) [SIG Apps and Node]

- Performance of the anti-affinity predicate of the default scheduler has been improved. ([#66948](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/66948), [@mohamed-mehany](https://github.com/mohamed-mehany))
- The unreachable taint gets applied to a node when it loses its network connection. ([#67734](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/67734), [@Huang-Wei](https://github.com/Huang-Wei))

 - CSINode initialization does not crash kubelet on startup when APIServer is not reachable or kubelet has not the right credentials yet. ([#89589](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/89589), [@jsafrane](https://github.com/jsafrane)) [SIG Storage]

 - CSINode initialization does not crash kubelet on startup when APIServer is not reachable or kubelet has not the right credentials yet. ([#89589](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/89589), [@jsafrane](https://github.com/jsafrane)) [SIG Storage]

- The pod phase lifecycle guarantees that terminal Pods, those whose states are `Unready` or `Succeeded`, can not regress and will have all container stopped. Hence, terminal Pods will never be reachable and should not publish their IP addresses on the `Endpoints` or `EndpointSlices`, independently of the Service `TolerateUnready` option. ([#110255](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/110255), [@robscott](https://github.com/robscott))

* Fix an issue where filesystems are not unmounted when a backend is not reachable and returns EIO. ([#67097](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/67097), [@chakri-nelluri](https://github.com/chakri-nelluri))