Kubernetes Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) Exam Survival Guide

Window: Global | Practical labs, 2 hrs, 15–20 tasks

Must-do topics

• Core: Pods, Deployments, Services, Ingress, ConfigMaps, Secrets
• Scheduling: taints/tolerations, affinity, nodeSelector
• Storage: PVs, PVCs, StorageClasses, StatefulSets
• Security: RBAC, ServiceAccounts, NetworkPolicies
• Troubleshooting: logs, events, kubectl describe, etcd basics
• Cluster ops: upgrade, backup/restore, certificates

Top traps (avoid)

• Forgetting -n namespace flag
• Missing context switch with kubectl config use-context
• Wrong YAML indentation; tabs vs spaces
• Forgetting to apply RBAC before testing access
• Not saving manifests → points lost even if cluster works

Time split

• 2 hrs, ~6–8 min/task
• Save manifest + verify quickly

Last-48h checklist

• Practice imperative → declarative (kubectl run → YAML)
• Memorize pod/deploy/service templates
• Backup/restore etcd (etcdctl snapshot save/restore)
• RBAC role + rolebinding YAMLs

Quick facts

• Service types: ClusterIP (default), NodePort, LoadBalancer
• Pod states: Pending, Running, CrashLoopBackOff, Completed
• Rolling update = default for deployments
• ConfigMap = non-secret config; Secret = base64-encoded

Speed tactics

• Use kubectl explain in exam
• Alias k=kubectl; save seconds
• Always kubectl get pods -n <ns> after creating resources

Day-of mini-plan

• Warm-up: 2 deploys, 1 RBAC role
• Pace: ~5–6 tasks/hr; don’t linger
• Keep YAML clean; copy/paste base templates