2.9.0rc2: bug fixes and feature enhancements

What's Changed

• Fixes repeatable participant selection and exclusion handling for POC commands. by @nvkevlu in #5177
• [Auto-FL] Fail closed on splatted job kwargs by @holgerroth in #5188
• [Auto-FL] Lazily load core metric heuristic in job importer by @holgerroth in #5187
• Advertise protocol and NVFlare versions during registration by @pcnudde in #5199
• Fix watchdog PID tracking by @IsaacYangSLA in #5198
• [Auto-FL] Refresh skill evaluation artifacts by @holgerroth in #5200
• Fix AWS EKS multicloud server Availability Zone placement by @IsaacYangSLA in #5201
• Fix cyclic external result materialization by @YuanTingHsieh in #5195
• Pass server cert identity to workspace transfer bootstrap cell by @Hashim1999164 in #5173
• Stabilize CI dependency setup and timeout test by @YuanTingHsieh in #5197
• Add Client API lifecycle integration CI by @YuanTingHsieh in #5174
• Fix external result reaper phase deadlines by @YuanTingHsieh in #5192
• [2.9] Preserve client log errors in HCI output by @chesterxgchen in #5212
• Fix FedJob transitive package import export by @YuanTingHsieh in #5208
• Handle configure job log with no connected clients by @chesterxgchen in #5217
• Fix concurrent job lifecycle accounting by @pcnudde in #5216
• Finalize failed jobs with missing client outcomes by @pcnudde in #5221
• Report active client process exit failures by @YuanTingHsieh in #5194
• Document dual-EKU re-provisioning requirement for K8s/Slurm job launchers [doc] [skip-ci] by @nvidianz in #5214
• [Auto-FL] Fix budget argument collisions by @holgerroth in #5211
• Clarify Kubernetes restaging namespace behavior [doc] [skip-ci] by @IsaacYangSLA in #5222
• Move FedAvg Collab example to hello world by @ZiyueXu77 in #5223
• [2.9] Improve Lightning and Hugging Face conversion skill reliability by @chesterxgchen in #5213

New Contributors

• @Hashim1999164 made their first contribution in #5173

Full Changelog: 2.9.0rc1...2.9.0rc2