- Kubelet terminates pods correctly upon restart, fixing an issue where pods may have not been fully terminated if the kubelet was restarted during pod termination. ([#117433](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/117433), [@bobbypage](https://github.com/bobbypage)) [SIG Node and Testing]

### Other notable changes

* Addresses vSphere Volume Attach limits ([#29881](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/29881), [@dagnello](https://github.com/dagnello))
* Increase request timeout based on termination grace period ([#31275](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/31275), [@dims](https://github.com/dims))

    * - Stop mounting the host certificates into fluentd's prometheus-to-sd container
* Fix a bug where pod address is not removed from endpoints object while pod is in graceful termination. ([#54828](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/54828), [@freehan](https://github.com/freehan))

- Introduction of the `DisruptionTarget` pod condition type. Its `reason` field indicates the reason for pod termination:
  - PreemptionByKubeScheduler (Pod preempted by kube-scheduler)
  - DeletionByTaintManager (Pod deleted by taint manager due to NoExecute taint)
  - EvictionByEvictionAPI (Pod evicted by Eviction API)

- Fixed a bug where hard evictions due to resource pressure allowed pods
  to use the full termination grace period instead of shutting down instantly. 
  This bug also affected force deleted pods. Both cases now receive a termination grace period of 1 second. ([#124063](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/124063), [@olyazavr](https://github.com/olyazavr))

* Fix race condition introduced by graceful termination which can lead to a deadlock in kube-proxy ([#72361](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/72361), [@lbernail](https://github.com/lbernail))

        int used = cmd.writeBytesWireFormat(buffer, 0);
        // Calculate expected size: 1 byte for command + string bytes + 1 null terminator
        byte[] expectedString = "testfile.txt".getBytes("windows-1252");
        assertEquals(1 + expectedString.length + 1, used, "Expected exactly one command byte plus OEM string and NUL terminator");
        assertEquals(0x04, buffer[0] & 0xFF, "First byte must be SMB_COM_QUERY_INFORMATION type 0x04");

        buffer.put(domainNameBytes);
        buffer.put((byte) 0x00); // Null terminator

        byte[] byteData = buffer.array();

        // Call the method
        int bytesRead = response.readBytesWireFormat(byteData, 0);

        // Assertions
        // readBytesWireFormat returns bytes processed up to null terminator
        assertEquals(14, bytesRead); // 8 bytes key + 6 bytes domain name

- Fix the regression with the slow pods termination. Before this fix pods may take an additional time to terminate - up to one minute. Reversing the change that ensured that CNI resources cleaned up when the pod is removed on API server. ([#97980](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/97980),...

        sdd.useUnicode = false;
        // format byte + path + null terminator
        byte[] expected = new byte[1 + dirName.length() + 1];
        expected[0] = 0x04; // buffer format
        System.arraycopy(dirName.getBytes(), 0, expected, 1, dirName.length());
        expected[dirName.length() + 1] = 0x00; // null terminator

        byte[] dst = new byte[100];
        int len = sdd.writeBytesWireFormat(dst, 0);