- Kubelet: a "maxParallelImagePulls" field can now be specified in the kubelet configuration file to control how many image pulls the kubelet can perform in parallel. ([#115220](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/115220), [@ruiwen-zhao](https://github.com/ruiwen-zhao)) [SIG API Machinery, Node and Scalability]

- the ability to rollback to etcd2 can be preserved by setting the storage media type flag on `kube-apiserver`

  ```
  --storage-media-type application/json
  ```

  to continue to use `application/json` as the storage media type which can be changed to
  `application/vnd.kubernetes.protobuf` at a later time.

## Major updates and release themes

### IPv4/IPv6 run

IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack has been reimplemented for 1.20 to support dual-stack Services, based on user and community feedback. If your cluster has dual-stack enabled, you can create Services which can use IPv4, IPv6, or both, and you can change this setting for existing Services. Details are available in updated [IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack docs](https://docs.k8s.io/concepts/services-networking/dual-stack/), which cover the nuanced array of options.

Kubeadm: Automate certificate copy between control planes in HA setups

- Joining control plane nodes to a HA cluster can now be simplified by enabling the optional automatic copy of certificates from an existing control plane node.
- You can now use `kubeadm init --experimental-upload-certs` and `kubeadm join --experimental-control-plane --certificate-key`.

* kubeadm: Make kube-proxy tolerate the external cloud provider taint so that an external cloud provider can be easily used on top of kubeadm ([#49017](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/49017), [@luxas](https://github.com/luxas))

flag `--experimental-patches` is now deprecated and will be removed in a future release. You can migrate to using the new flag `--patches`. Add a new field `{Init|Join}Configuration.patches.directory` that can be used for the same purpose. For `init` and `join` it is now recommended that you migrate to configure patches via `{Init|Join}Configuration.patches.directory`. For the time being, these flags can be mixed with `--config`, but that might change in the future. On a command line, the last *patches...

* kubeadm: fix a possible scenario where kubeadm can pull much newer control-plane images ([#69301](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/69301), [@neolit123](https://github.com/neolit123))
* test/e2e/e2e.test: ([#69105](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/pull/69105), [@pohly](https://github.com/pohly))
   * -viper-config can be used to set also the options defined by command line flags

- consumers of the 'certificatesigningrequests/approval' API must now have permission to 'approve' CSRs for the specific signer requested by the CSR. More information on the new signerName field and the required authorization can be found at https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/access-authn-authz/certificate-signing-requests#authorization...

access. The User in `super-admin.conf` is now bound to the `system:masters` built-in super-powers / break-glass Group that can bypass RBAC. Before this change, the default `admin.conf` was bound to `system:masters` Group, which was undesired. Executing `kubeadm init phase kubeconfig all` or just `kubeadm init` will now generate the new `super-admin.conf` file. The cluster admin can then decide to keep the file present on a node host or move it to a safe location. `kubadm certs renew` will renew the certificate...

    - `apiserver_flowcontrol_current_limit_seats`: current derived number of execution seats available to each priority level