Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)

The Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam tests your ability to install, configure, and manage Kubernetes clusters in real-world scenarios. It focuses heavily on system-level operations, cluster components, and day-to-day administrator tasks.

🧠 Exam Overview

  • Format: Hands-on, performance-based lab
  • Duration: 2 hours
  • Passing score: 66%
  • Price: $395 USD (includes one retake)
  • Open book: Access to kubernetes.io/docs and GitHub

📋 Domains & Weights

Domain Weight
Cluster Architecture, Installation & Configuration 25%
Workloads & Scheduling 15%
Services & Networking 20%
Storage 10%
Troubleshooting 30%

✅ What You Should Master

1. Cluster Architecture & Setup (25%)

  • kubeadm init, join, reset
  • Control plane components: API server, scheduler, controller manager
  • Node components: kubelet, kube-proxy, container runtime
  • kubectl config + kubeconfig structure
  • Certificate management (CA, client certs)
  • etcdctl backup and restore
  • Static Pods and manifests in /etc/kubernetes/manifests
  • Taints and tolerations

2. Workloads & Scheduling (15%)

  • Deployments, ReplicaSets, Jobs, CronJobs
  • Labels, selectors, and affinity/anti-affinity rules
  • Taints, tolerations, and node selectors
  • DaemonSets

3. Services & Networking (20%)

  • ClusterIP, NodePort, LoadBalancer
  • CoreDNS troubleshooting
  • NetworkPolicies (basic understanding)
  • Ingress (YAML-level familiarity)
  • Pod-to-Pod communication

4. Storage (10%)

  • Volumes and volumeMounts
  • PersistentVolumes (PV) and PersistentVolumeClaims (PVC)
  • StorageClasses
  • AccessModes and reclaim policies

5. Troubleshooting (30%)

  • Pod/container status (kubectl describe, logs, events)
  • kubectl exec, port-forward
  • CrashLoopBackOff, ImagePullBackOff
  • Control plane failure detection (kubelet, etcd, API server)
  • Networking and DNS issues
  • Resource scheduling issues (taints, affinity, nodeSelector)
  • CNI problems

⚙️ Practice Tips

  • Set up a local cluster using kubeadm (or use labs like Killer.sh)
  • Use kubectl explain often to understand object structure
  • Use kubectl -n kube-system get pods to monitor system health
  • Alias these commands:
alias k=kubectl
alias kgp='kubectl get pods'
alias kaf='kubectl apply -f'
  • Practice writing manifests quickly with:
kubectl run nginx --image=nginx --dry-run=client -o yaml
  • Use kubectl edit and kubectl patch to modify resources live

🧪 Test Environment Tips

Summary

The CKA exam simulates real-world cluster admin tasks. You’ll be troubleshooting, configuring, deploying, and debugging in a live cluster. With good YAML speed and familiarity with kubectl, you’ll be ready to pass with confidence.

Start with the fundamentals. Practice under time pressure. Know where to look in the docs.