- Kubeadm: during execution of the "check expiration" command, treat the etcd CA as external if there is a missing etcd CA key file (etcd/ca.key) and perform the proper validation on certificates signed by the etcd CA. Additionally, make sure that the CA for all entries in the output table is included - for both certificates on disk and in kubeconfig files. ([#106924](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/106924),...

ensure static pods (especially those that use fixed UIDs) are restarted.  As a side effect of these changes static pods will be restarted with lower latency than before (2s vs 4s, on average) and rapid updates to pod configuration should take effect sooner.
  
  A new metric `kubelet_known_pods` has been added at ALPHA stability to report the number of pods a Kubelet is tracking in a number of internal states.  Operators may use the metrics to track an excess of pods in the orphaned state...

* Adds optional group and version information to the discovery interface, so that if an endpoint uses non-default values, the proper value of "kind" can be determined. Scale is a common example. ([#49971](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/49971), [@deads2k](https://github.com/deads2k))

- Fixed the calculation of the requeue time in the cronjob controller, resulting in proper handling of failed/stuck jobs. ([#121327](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/121327), [@soltysh](https://github.com/soltysh))

* the resource quota controller was not adding quota to be resynced at proper interval ([#45685](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/45685), [@derekwaynecarr](https://github.com/derekwaynecarr))

Zones feature is in use. Zone labels setup moved to KCM component, kubelet skips this step during startup in such case. If credentials stored in cloud-provider config file as plaintext current behaviour does not change and no action required. For proper functioning `kube-system:vsphere-legacy-cloud-provider` should be allowed to update node object if vCenter credentials stored in secret and Zone feature used. ([#101028](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/101028), [@lobziik](https://github.com/lobziik))...

- Kubeadm: during execution of the "check expiration" command, treat the etcd CA as external if there is a missing etcd CA key file (etcd/ca.key) and perform the proper validation on certificates signed by the etcd CA. Additionally, make sure that the CA for all entries in the output table is included - for both certificates on disk and in kubeconfig files. ([#106926](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/106926),...

- Kubeadm: during execution of the "check expiration" command, treat the etcd CA as external if there is a missing etcd CA key file (etcd/ca.key) and perform the proper validation on certificates signed by the etcd CA. Additionally, make sure that the CA for all entries in the output table is included - for both certificates on disk and in kubeconfig files. ([#106925](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/106925),...