Strategy: How to pass CKA Exam with less stress

I passed the Certified Kubernetes Administrator – CKA exam. During the preparation of this exam, I went through many blogs, and official and unofficial documents, watched online trainings, deployed and played with the Kubernetes cluster in my Home lab, and did some online practice labs as well. Some of those were really useful for the CKA exam, some for a deep understanding of Kubernetes, but there was some trash as well. I am writing this blog to share my experience with useful notes that may give you a better picture of the CKA exam and help to avoid common mistakes and pass the CKA exam.

What can a Certified Kubernetes Administrator do?

A Certified Kubernetes Administrator should be able to design the Kubernetes cluster as per the project requirement. He/She can also deploy, configure and manage the cluster as per the planned design. A deep understanding of key concepts such as Kubernetes networking, storage, security, maintenance, upgrade, logging and monitoring, application lifecycle, troubleshooting, and API object primitives is also expected.

Exam Details:

CKA is a 100% hands-on exam with 15-17 practical questions you need to solve from a command line. Each question has a different weightage (see the topic-wise weightage details below). You need to achieve at least a 66% score to pass the exam.

Duration of Exam: 2 hours
Software Version: Kubernetes v1.20
Number of Questions: 17 (All hands-on, each question with a different weightage)
Passing score: 66%

CKA Curriculum:

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

CKA Syllabus

Strategy:

First, ask yourself if you can spare at least 2 month’s time of dedicated study for this exam. If yes, then you need to understand the key concept of Kubernetes and build competency in hands-on deployment and troubleshooting of the Kubernetes cluster. But before that, you must know some basic of Linux, Docker, Networking, and YAML.
Here are something you must study before the exam:

Kubernetes Concepts
Kubernetes Reference
Kubectl imperative commands
Basics of Linux – VI editor, tmux, systemd, like starting, restarting, and enabling the service.
YAML
JSONpath queries

The exam environment

The CKA exam environment consists of into six Kubernetes clusters, each of which contains a different number of containers:

CKA Clusters
Cluster	Members	CNI	Description
k8s	1 master, 2 worker	flannel	k8s cluster
hk8s	1 master, 2 worker	calico	k8s cluster
bk8s	1 master, 1 worker	flannel	k8s cluster
wk8s	1 master, 2 worker	flannel	k8s cluster
ek8s	1 master, 2 worker	flannel	k8s cluster
ik8s	1 master, 1 base node	loopback	k8s cluster

CKA exam environment

To practice for the CKA exam, you can create the same size of Kubernetes cluster in your lab on:

If you don’t want to setup a lab or you don’t have a lab to setup the Kubernetes cluster, you can use readymade labs as well:

Study Materials:

Books:

Video Tutorials:

Linux Foundation – Kubernetes Fundamentals (LFS258)
Udemy Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) with Practice Tests by Mumshad Mannambeth (Best Course)
Pluralsight Certified Kubernetes Administrator by Anthony Nocentino

Practice Tests:

Do all the tasks given at the official site Kubernetes Task
Kubernetes The Hard Way by Kelsey Hightower
K8s Practice Training by Stilian Stoilov
CKA Simulator by Killer.sh

Tips:

Practice until you get enough confidence.
Learn some Linux shortcuts, Prepare yourself to be fast enough to complete 17-20 different tasks in 2 hours. You can go through this blog written by Kim Wuestkamp.
Bookmark the URLs of all relative configurations from kubernetes.io/documents to a bookmark folder so that you don’t need to memorize the entire command and YAML.
Get used to the official kubectl Cheat Sheet page, and you will find many references from there.
Practice everything mentioned in the curriculum (like the upgrade, backup & restore, creating/modifying/scaling up pods, deployments, services, ingress, etc.)
Get familiar with static pods, scheduling, PV, PVC, Kubernetes Networking, CNI, Network Policies, RBAC, Service accounts, Secrets and ConfigMaps, etc.
Don’t forget to practice troubleshooting exercises and JSONpath queries.

Exam Day:

Log in and start 15 min earlier than the scheduled time so that the Protector can complete the prerequisite checks (like ID verification) and start the exam on time. You can use multiple monitors, actually two (one for the CKA exam window and the other to open the kubernetes.io documents page).

You can speed up and save your time by applying BASH auto completion and creating some aliases before starting work on exam questions:

Kubectl autocomplete

(No need to remember, it’s available on the official kubectl Cheat Sheet page, which is allowed to open in the exam)

source <(kubectl completion bash) # setup autocomplete in bash into the current shell, bash-completion package should be installed first.

echo "source <(kubectl completion bash)" >> ~/.bashrc # add autocomplete permanently to your bash shell.

You can also use a shorthand alias for kubectl that also works with completion:

alias k=kubectl complete -F __start_kubectl k

Aliases: (learn to create Aliases)

alias k='kubectl'

alias kgp='kubectl get pods'

alias kgn='kubectl get nods'

alias kgd='kubectl get deployment'

alias kdp=’kubectl describe pod’

alias kdd=’kubectl describe deployment’

alias kgs='kubectl get svc'

alias kds='kubectl describe svc'

Avoid the below mistakes:

Don’t forget to use the right context. Remember, each question will have a different context mentioned on the top question window. You need to copy/paste before doing anything related to that question.
Don’t open any link given on kubernetes.io without knowing the destination URL. Remember, You are allowed to open only the below links:
Don’t open any URL in a new tab. You are allowed to open only one tab other than the exam tab.
In the CKA Exam, there would be 6 clusters, but one would be the primary. So make sure to log out of other nodes after troubleshooting and coming back to the primary one for the next question.

Post Exam:

After the examination, do some rest and control your excitement because the result will take 24-36 hours to arrive in your email inbox. At this time, you may have a good idea of whether you will pass or fail based on your performance in the exam. Hopefully, with the proper preparation, you will crack the CKA exam, but still, if you can’t make it for the first attempt, the good thing is Linux Foundation gives you a free retake.

CKA is really a tough exam, but with a proper strategy, consistent study, and practice, you can pass it. It might take some of your family’s time, but as a reward, it makes you feel very confident about this cutting-edge technology.

Thanks!!

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About Shahzad

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What can a Certified Kubernetes Administrator do?