- The kubelet now creates an iptables chain named `KUBE-IPTABLES-HINT` in
  the `mangle` table. Containerized components that need to modify iptables
  rules in the host network namespace can use the existence of this chain
  to more-reliably determine whether the system is using iptables-legacy or
  iptables-nft. ([#109059](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/109059), [@danwinship](https://github.com/danwinship))

- kubeadm: removed preflight check for existence of the conntrack binary, as conntrack is no longer a kube-proxy dependency in version 1.32 and newer. ([#126953](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/126953), [@aroradaman](https://github.com/aroradaman))

    * This result into:
    * - clusters moving from IPv4 to duakstack will require no changes
    * - clusters moving from IPv6 (while not seen in the wild, we can not rule out their existence) to dualstack will require deleting backend pools (the reconciler will take care of creating correct backendpools)

### Bug or Regression

- Kubeadm: allow the "certs check-expiration" command to not require the existence of the cluster CA key (ca.key file) when checking the expiration of managed certificates in kubeconfig files. ([#106931](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/106931), [@neolit123](https://github.com/neolit123)) [SIG Cluster Lifecycle]

- Kubeadm: allow the "certs check-expiration" command to not require the existence of the cluster CA key (ca.key file) when checking the expiration of managed certificates in kubeconfig files. ([#106930](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/106930), [@neolit123](https://github.com/neolit123)) [SIG Cluster Lifecycle]

- Kubeadm: allow the "certs check-expiration" command to not require the existence of the cluster CA key (ca.key file) when checking the expiration of managed certificates in kubeconfig files. ([#106927](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/106927), [@neolit123](https://github.com/neolit123)) [SIG Cluster Lifecycle]

- Fixed a bug in the scheduler where it would crash when prefilter returns a non-existent node. ([#124933](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/124933), [@AxeZhan](https://github.com/AxeZhan)) [SIG Scheduling and Testing]
- Fixed a bug that Pods could stuck in the unschedulable pod pool 

* client-go: fake clients now properly return NotFound errors when attempting to patch non-existent objects ([#70886](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/70886), [@bouk](https://github.com/bouk))

- Fixed bug that caused a resource to include patch directives when using strategic merge patch against a non-existent field. ([#117568](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/117568), [@alexzielenski](https://github.com/alexzielenski))

* Azure disks now support external resource groups.
([#64427](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/64427), [@andyzhangx](https://github.com/andyzhangx))
* Added reason message logs for non-existent Azure resources.
([#64248](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/64248), [@feiskyer](https://github.com/feiskyer))

### SIG CLI