- [SIG VMWare](#sig-vmware-1)
    - [SIG Windows](#sig-windows-1)
  - [Other Notable Changes](#other-notable-changes-11)
    - [Bug Fixes](#bug-fixes)
    - [Not Very Notable (that is, non-user-facing)](#not-very-notable-that-is-non-user-facing)
  - [External Dependencies](#external-dependencies)
- [v1.12.0-rc.2](#v1120-rc2)
  - [Downloads for v1.12.0-rc.2](#downloads-for-v1120-rc2)

* Reduce default NodeStatusReportFrequency to 5 minutes. With this change, periodic node status updates will be send every 5m if node status doesn't change (otherwise they are still send with 10s). ([#84007](https://githu...

- Kubernetes will try to acquire the iptables lock every 100 msec during 5 seconds instead of every second. This is especially useful for environments using kube-proxy in iptables mode with a high churn rate of services. ([#85771](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/85771), [@aojea](https://github.com/aojea)) [SIG...

* Adds the `Categories []string` field to API resources, which represents the list of group aliases (e.g. "all") that every resource belongs to.  ([#43338](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/43338), [@fabianofranz](https://github.com/fabianofranz))

- Fix: The volume is not detached after the pod and PVC objects are deleted. ([#116138](https://g...

* new dhcp-domain parameter to be used for figuring out the hostname of a node ([#61890](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/61890), [@dims](https://github.com/dims))
* Disable ipamperf integration tests as part of every PR verification. ([#61863](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/61863), [@satyasm](https://github.com/satyasm))

* Fixes a bug in HPA controller so HPAs are always updated every resyncPeriod (15 seconds). ([#72373](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/72373), [@krzysztof-jastrzebski](https://github.com/krzysztof-jastrzebski))

  - `priority_level_seat_count_watermarks` is removed.
  - `priority_level_request_count_samples` is replaced with `priority_level_request_utilization`, which samples every nanosecond rather than every millisecond; the old metric conveyed utilization despite its name.

- Node affinity, Node selectors, and tolerations are now mutable for Jobs that are suspended and have never been started ([#105479](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/105479), [@ahg-g](https://github.com/ahg-g))
- Pod template annotations and labels are now mutable for Jobs that are suspended and have never been started ([#105980](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/105980), [@ahg-g](https://github.com/ahg-g))

- Fix kubelet NodeLease potential performance issues. Kubelet now will try to update lease using cached one instead of get from API Server every time. ([#81174](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/81174), [@answer1991](https://github.com/answer1991))