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

* kubeadm: use the CRI for preflights checks ([#55055](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/55055), [@runcom](https://github.com/runcom))

### 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))

* GCE/GKE load balancer health check default interval changes from 2 seconds to 8 seconds, unhealthyThreshold to 3. ([#70099](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/70099), [@grayluck](https://github.com/grayluck))
    * Health check parameters are configurable to be bigger than default values.



# v1.11.4

- If `ComponentSLIs` feature gate is enabled, then `/metrics/slis` now becomes available on cloud-controller-manager allowing you to scrape health check metrics. ([#113340](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/113340), [@Richabanker](https://gi...

#### Load Balancing

* Corrects check for non-Azure managed nodes with the Azure cloud provider ([#70135](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/70135), [@marc-sensenich](https://github.com/marc-sensenich))

- Fix the VMSS name and resource group name when updating Azure VMSS for LoadBalancer backendPools ([#89337](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/89337), [@feiskyer](https://github.com/feiskyer)) [SIG Cloud Provider]
- Fix: check disk status before delete azure disk ([#88360](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/88360), [@andyzhangx](https://github.com/andyzhangx)) [SIG Cloud Provider]

- 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))...