- Fixed the behavior of the `KUBE_PROXY_NFTABLES_SKIP_KERNEL_VERSION_CHECK` environment variable in the nftables proxier. The kernel version check is now skipped only when this variable is explicitly set to a non-empty value. To skip the check, set the `KUBE_PROXY_NFTABLES_SKIP_KERNEL_VERSION_CHECK` environment variable. ([#130401](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/130401), [@ryota-sakamoto](https://github.com/ryota-sakamoto))...

- Kubeadm: Added support during the preflight check "CreateJob" of "kubeadm upgrade" to check if there are no nodes where a Pod can be scheduled. If there are none, show a warning and skip this preflight check. This can happen in single node clusters where the only node was drained. ([#124503](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/124503), [@neolit123](https://github.com/neolit123))...

- Discarded the output streams of destination path check in kubectl cp when copying from local to pod and added a 3 seconds timeout to this check ([#126652](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/126652), [@ardaguclu](https://github.com/ardaguclu)) [SIG CLI]

- Added authorization check support to the CEL expressions of ValidatingAdmissionPolicy via a `authorizer`

- Kubeadm: switched the validation check for Linux kernel version to throw warnings instead of errors. ([#131919](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/131919), [@neoli...

winkernel mode. `--forward-healthcheck-vip`, if specified as true, health check traffic whose destination is service VIP will be forwarded to kube-proxy's healthcheck service. `--root-hnsendpoint-name` specifies the name of the hns endpoint for the root network namespace. This option enables the pass-through load balancers like Google's GCLB to correctly health check the backend services. Without this change, the health check packets is dropped, and Windows node will be considered to be unhealthy by...

- kubeadm no longer performs IPVS checks as part of its preflight checks ([#81791](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/81791), [@yastij](https://github.com/yastij))
- kubeadm: fix for HTTPProxy check for IPv6 addresses ([#82267](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/82267), [@kad](https://github.com/kad))

### 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]

- The  new flag `etcd-ready-timeout` has been added. It configures a timeout of an additional etcd check performed as part of readyz check. ([#111399](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/111399), [@Argh4k](https://github.com/Argh4k))

- Kubeadm: during the preflight check "CreateJob" of "kubeadm upgrade", check if there are no nodes where a Pod can schedule. If there are none, show a warning and skip this preflight check. This can happen in single node clusters where the only node was drained. ([#124570](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/124570), [@neolit123](https://github.com/neolit123))...