What happened:

I have not been able to use node images provided for releases since v0.28.0.
When using these node image, I get ErrImagePull errors for my deployment images in Kubernetes.

This means I cannot use new kind node images, and have to stick to older ones.

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

Run kind with any node images since v0.28.0, where your application images are being pulled from registry such as Artifactory. Artifactory is known to be affected, and other may be too.
Given the wide spread use of Artifatory, especially in corporate environments, this is a major issue.

Anything else we need to know?:

After some investigation, it seems that the problem is with containerd 2.1.0.

Node image for v0.27.0 of kind used containerd v2.0.2, whereas you switched to containerd v2.1.0 for images published since kind v0.28.0.

The issues is actually a containerd issue as documented here

The fix has been released in containerd v2.1.3.

I have rebuilt the kind base iamge with containerd 2.1.3, and rebuilt the node image, and have tested that that solves the issue.

So this issue is essentially a tracker to ensure that containerd is upgraded.