For more information, see [#53288](https://issue.k8s.io/53288).

* `kubeadm init` and `kubeadm join` invocations on newly installed systems can encounter a `/var/lib/kubelet is not empty` message during pre-flight checks that prevents setup. If this is the only pre-flight failure, it can be safely ignored with `--skip-preflight-checks`.

For more information, see [#53356](https://issue.k8s.io/53356#issuecomment-333748618).

* Bump ip-masq-agent to v2.1.1 ([#67916](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/67916), [@MrHohn](https://github.com/MrHohn))
    * Update debian-iptables image for CVEs.
    * Change chain name to IP-MASQ to be compatible with the pre-injected masquerade rules.

- kubeadm now can join the cluster with pre-existing client certificate if provided ([#66482](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/66482), [@dixudx](https://github.com/dixudx))

### Introducing Windows CSI support alpha for Kubernetes

With the release of Kubernetes 1.18, an alpha version of CSI Proxy for Windows is getting released. CSI proxy enables non-privileged (pre-approved) containers to perform privileged storage operations on Windows. CSI drivers can now be supported in Windows by leveraging CSI proxy.
SIG Storage made a lot of progress in the 1.18 release.

- Feature gates CSIMigration to Beta (on by default) and CSIMigrationGCE to Beta (off by default since it requires installation of the GCE PD CSI Driver) ([#85231](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/85231),...

- kubeadm: remove the AuditPolicyConfiguration feature gate ([#70807](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/70807), [@Klaven](https://github.com/Klaven))
- kubeadm pre-pulls Etcd image only if external Etcd is not used and --etcd-upgrade=false is not specified ([#70743](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/70743), [@bart0sh](https://github.com/bart0sh))

- The kube-proxy `sync_proxy_rules_iptables_total` metric has now reverted back
  to its pre-1.27 behavior of tracking the total number of iptables rules that
  kube-proxy is responsible for, rather than only counting the number of rules
  that it re-synced on the last sync. The new `sync_proxy_rules_iptables_last`

    * - Update debian-iptables image for CVEs.
    * - Change chain name to IP-MASQ to be compatible with the
    * pre-injected masquerade rules.

    * - Update debian-iptables image for CVEs.
    * - Change chain name to IP-MASQ to be compatible with the
    * pre-injected masquerade rules.
* Fix VMWare VM freezing bug by reverting [#51066](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/51066) ([#67825](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/67825), [@nikopen](https://github.com/nikopen))

- Kubeadm: perform pre-flight validation on host/node name upon `kubeadm init` and `kubeadm join`, showing warnings on non-compliant names ([#99194](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/99194), [@pacoxu](https://github.com/pacoxu))