- Kube-apiserver: Each unique set of etcd server overrides specified with `--etcd-servers-overrides` surfaced health checks named `etcd-override-<index>` and `etcd-override-readiness-<index>`. These checks were still excluded by the `?exclude=etcd` and `?exclude=etcd-readiness` directives. ([#129438](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/129438), [@pacoxu](https://github.com/pacoxu)) [SIG API Machinery and Testing]

- Kubeadm: apply the "node.kubernetes.io/exclude-from-external-load-balancers" label on control plane nodes during "init", "join" and "upgrade" to preserve backwards compatibility with the lagacy LB mode where nodes labeled as "master" where excluded. To opt-out you can remove the label from a node. See #97543 and the linked KEP for more details. ([#98269](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/98269),...

### SIG Azure

* The Azure cloud provider now supports standard SKU load balancer and public IP.
`excludeMasterFromStandardLB` defaults to true, which means master nodes are excluded from the standard load balancer. Also note that because all nodes (except master) are added as loadbalancer backends, the standard load balancer doesn't work with the `service.beta.kubernetes.io/azure-load-balancer-mode` annotation.

  - The calculations for Pod topology spread skew now excludes nodes that
  don't match the node affinity/selector. This may lead to unschedulable pods if you previously had pods
  matching the spreading selector on those excluded nodes (not matching the node affinity/selector),

  - the node label `alpha.service-controller.kubernetes.io/exclude-balancer` which excludes a node from cloud load balancers (using Service Type=LoadBalancer) is deprecated in favor of `node.kubernetes.io/exclude-balancer`. Support for `alpha.service-controller.kubernetes.io/exclude-balancer` will be removed in v1.18.

- Features:

- Discovery document will correctly return the resources for aggregated apiservers that do not implement aggregated disovery ([#115770](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/115770), [@Jefftree](https://github.com/Jefftree))
- Excluded preemptor pod metadata in the event message ([#114923](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/114923), [@mimowo](https://github.com/mimowo))
- Expanded the partial fix for https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/issues/111539

- When a PreFilterResult filters out certain Nodes, the scheduling framework now categorizes them as rejected via `UnschedulableAndUnresolvable`. Consequently, these nodes are excluded from the candidates for the preemption process. Additionally, this update corrects how the scheduling framework handles the Unschedulable status from PreFilter. Previously, if PreFilter returned `Unschedulable`, it could lead to an unexpected abortion in the preemption process, which shouldn't...

  - **apiserver_flowcontrol_priority_level_seat_count_watermarks**: histograms of high and low watermarks of number of seats occupied by executing requests (both regular and final-delay phases included), broken down by priority_level.

      - [Security](#security-1)
      - [Scalability](#scalability)
  - [**External Dependency Version Information**](#external-dependency-version-information)
    - [Previous Releases Included in v1.7.0](#previous-releases-included-in-v170)
- [v1.7.0-rc.1](#v170-rc1)
  - [Downloads for v1.7.0-rc.1](#downloads-for-v170-rc1)
    - [Client Binaries](#client-binaries-17)
    - [Server Binaries](#server-binaries-17)

    *   Federation-specific behavior will no longer be included in kubectl
    *   kubefed will no longer be released as part of Kubernetes
    *   The Federation servers will no longer be included in the hyperkube binary and image. ([#53816](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/53816),[ @marun](https://github.com/marun))

### **Node**