## Changelog since v1.5.5

### Other notable changes

* Use upgraded container-vm by default on worker nodes for GCE k8s clusters ([#31023](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/31023), [@vishh](https://github.com/vishh))

### Other notable changes

* Enable kubelet eviction whenever inodes free is < 5% on GCE ([#31545](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/31545), [@vishh](https://github.com/vishh))

- Windows nodes on GCE now have the Windows firewall enabled by default. ([#78507](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/78507), [@pjh](https://github.com/pjh))
- Added `CNI_VERSION` and `CNI_SHA1` environment variables in `kube-up.sh` to configure CNI versions on GCE. ([#76353](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/76353), [@Random-Liu](https://github.com/Random-Liu))

### Bug or Regression

- Avoid GCE API calls when initializing GCE CloudProvider for Kubelets.
  Avoid unnecessary GCE API calls when adding IP alises or reflecting them in Node object in GCE cloud provider. ([#96864](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/96864), [@tosi3k](https://github.com/tosi3k)) [SIG Apps, Cloud Provider and Network]

### Other notable changes

* GCE/Windows: disable stackdriver logging agent to prevent node startup failures ([#76099](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/76099), [@yujuhong](https://github.com/yujuhong))
* Support vSphere SAML token auth when using Zones ([#75515](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/75515), [@dougm](https://github.com/dougm))

### Bug or Regression

- Avoid GCE API calls when initializing GCE CloudProvider for Kubelets.
  Avoid unnecessary GCE API calls when adding IP alises or reflecting them in Node object in GCE cloud provider. ([#96863](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/96863), [@tosi3k](https://github.com/tosi3k)) [SIG Apps, Cloud Provider and Network]

- Fixed an issue which prevented `gcloud` from working on GCE when metadata concealment was enabled. ([#66630](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/66630), [@dekkagaijin](https://github.com/dekkagaijin))
- Fix Stackdriver integration based on node annotation container.googleapis.com/instance_id. ([#66676](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/66676), [@kawych](https://github.com/kawych))

  - the `--cloud-provider-gce-lb-src-cidrs` flag has been deprecated. This flag will be removed once the GCE Cloud Provider is removed from kube-apiserver. ([#81094](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/81094), [@andrewsykim](https://github.com/andrewsykim))

 - Newly provisioned PVs by gce-pd will no longer have the beta FailureDomain label. gce-pd volume plugin will start to have GA topology label instead. ([#98700](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/98700), [@Jiawei0227](https://github.com/Jiawei0227)) [SIG Cloud Provider, Storage and Testing]

- Bumped addon-manager to v8.8 ([#69337](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/69337), [@MrHohn](https://github.com/MrHohn))
- GCE: Filter out spammy audit logs from cluster autoscaler. ([#70696](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/70696), [@loburm](https://github.com/loburm))
- GCE: Enable by default audit logging truncating backend. ([#68288](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/68288), [@loburm](https://github.com/loburm))