- Kubeadm: add support for certificate chain validation. When using kubeadm in external CA mode, this allows an intermediate CA to be used to sign the certificates. The intermediate CA certificate must be appended to each signed certificate for this to work correctly. ([#97266](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/97266), [@robbiemcmichael](https://github.com/robbiemcmichael)) [SIG Cluster Lifecycle]

  - The requested name does not match the set of authorized names (x509.HostnameError)
  - The error surfaced after attempting a connection contains one of the substrings: "certificate is not trusted" or "certificate signed by unknown authority" ([#120767](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/120767), [@MadhavJivrajani](https://github.com/MadhavJivrajani)) [SIG Architecture and Cloud Provider]

* Add CLUSTER_SIGNING_DURATION environment variable to cluster ([#52497](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/52497), [@jcbsmpsn](https://github.com/jcbsmpsn))
    * configuration scripts to allow configuration of signing duration of
    * certificates issued via the Certificate Signing Request API.

  - The requested name does not match the set of authorized names (x509.HostnameError)
  - The error surfaced after attempting a connection contains one of the substrings: "certificate is not trusted" or "certificate signed by unknown authority" ([#120768](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/120768), [@MadhavJivrajani](https://github.com/MadhavJivrajani)) [SIG Architecture and Cloud Provider]

### Signing Release Artifacts

Release artifacts are [signed](https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/3031) using [cosign](https://github.com/sigstore/cosign)
signatures
and there is experimental support for [verifying image signatures](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/administer-cluster/verify-signed-images/).

- The kube-controller-manager's deprecated `--experimental-cluster-signing-duration` flag is now removed. Adapt your machinery to use the `--cluster-signing-duration` flag that is available since v1.19. ([#108476](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/108476), [@ialidzhikov](https://github.com/ialidzhikov))

- The `EndpointSlicen Mirroring controller` no longer mirrors...

- 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), [@neolit123](https://gi...

- Addressed an issue where a JWT authenticator set up via `--authentication-config` would encounter failures in verifying tokens not signed with RS256. ([#123282](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/123282), [@enj](https://github.com/enj))

  - The requested name did not match the set of authorized names (`x509.HostnameError`)
  - The error surfaced after attempting a connection contained one of the substrings: "certificate is not trusted" or "certificate signed by unknown authority". ([#120736](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/120736), [@MadhavJivrajani](https://github.com/MadhavJivrajani))