kubernetes: Kubelet 1.17.8 breaks pod/container startup

What happened:

There was a happy kubernetes cluster running 1.17.6 version of kubelet and everything. Once upgraded to 1.17.8: kubelet 1.17.8 breaks pod/container startup.

What you expected to happen:

Pods created and started successfully.

How to reproduce it (as minimally and precisely as possible):

No pods with cluster IP can be started. They all go to crashloop. They seem to start, but kubelet kills them right away.

Anything else we need to know?:

Kubelet keeps retrying and failing with the following error log:

Jun 30 18:31:49 lvdkbw503 kubelet-wrapper[2236]: W0701 01:31:49.911786    2236 docker_sandbox.go:394] failed to read pod IP from plugin/docker: networkPlugin cni failed on the status hook for pod "rook-ceph-osd-2-66d588bc98-khxnk_rook-ceph": unexpected command output nsenter: failed to execute ip: No such file or directory
Jun 30 18:31:49 lvdkbw503 kubelet-wrapper[2236]:  with error: exit status 127

Rolling back kubelet to 1.17.6 immediately fixes the issue.

Environment:

• Kubernetes version (use kubectl version):

$ kubectl version
Client Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"18", GitVersion:"v1.18.0", GitCommit:"9e991415386e4cf155a24b1da15becaa390438d8", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2020-03-25T14:58:59Z", GoVersion:"go1.13.8", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"linux/amd64"}
Server Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"17", GitVersion:"v1.17.8", GitCommit:"35dc4cdc26cfcb6614059c4c6e836e5f0dc61dee", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2020-06-26T03:36:03Z", GoVersion:"go1.13.9", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"linux/amd64"}

• Cloud provider or hardware configuration:

Self-hosted kubernetes cluster in a VMWare cluster.

• OS (e.g: cat /etc/os-release):

NAME="Flatcar Container Linux by Kinvolk"
ID=flatcar
ID_LIKE=coreos
VERSION=2512.2.1
VERSION_ID=2512.2.1
BUILD_ID=2020-06-16-1044
PRETTY_NAME="Flatcar Container Linux by Kinvolk 2512.2.1 (Oklo)"
ANSI_COLOR="38;5;75"
HOME_URL="https://flatcar-linux.org/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://issues.flatcar-linux.org"
FLATCAR_BOARD="amd64-usr"

• Kernel (e.g. uname -a):

Linux lvdkbw503 4.19.128-flatcar #1 SMP Tue Jun 16 10:17:17 -00 2020 x86_64 Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2660 v2 @ 2.20GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

• Install tools:

ignition config

• Network plugin and version (if this is a network-related bug):

Calico v3.13.3

• Others:

Docker version 18.06.3-ce, build d7080c1