CKA Exam Start Checklist

Beginning of Exam — Run Once Link to heading

Step 1 — check .vimrc Link to heading

vim ~/.vimrc

set expandtab
set tabstop=2
set shiftwidth=2
set number
set autoindent

Beginning of Every Question — Run These First Link to heading

export do="--dry-run=client -o yaml"
echo $do
k config set-context --current --namespace=<namespace>

Exam Strategy — First 2 Minutes Link to heading

  1. Run the setup above
  2. Read through ALL questions quickly
  3. Flag hard ones, do easy ones first

Allowed Resources Link to heading

Kubernetes Documentation https://kubernetes.io/docs
Kubernetes Blog https://kubernetes.io/blog/
Helm Documentation https://helm.sh/docs
CKA only: Gateway API Documentation https://gateway-api.sigs.k8s.io

During the Exam Link to heading

  • Read the question TWICE before touching the keyboard
  • Imperative first — always try k create / k run before writing YAML
  • Verify after every task — k get, k describe, k logs
  • Save output files — if question asks for a file, write it before moving on
  • Read resource names carefully — one wrong name nukes the whole question
  • **Skip and flag hard questions after 4 minutes MAX!!!

Temp Pod Patterns (curl / wget / shell) Link to heading

# Single command — use -i only (NOT -it, causes hang)
k run tmp -i --rm --restart Never --image nginx:alpine -- curl http://<svc>:<port>

# wget variant (busybox)
k run tmp -i --rm --restart Never --image busybox -- wget -O- http://<svc>:<port>

# nc — TCP connectivity test (when no curl/wget available)
k run tmp -i --rm --restart Never --image busybox -- nc -zv <svc> <port>

Rules:

  • -i only = single command (curl, wget, env, cat, nc)
  • nc -z = scan only, no data — -v = verbose

Service Debugging Reflex Link to heading

# Step 1 — check endpoints
k get endpoints <svc>
# <none> = selector mismatch

# Step 2 — verify pod labels
k get pods --show-labels

# Step 3 — check selector and ports in svc
k get svc <svc> -o yaml

# Step 4 — verify containerPort in pod
k get pod <pod> -o yaml | grep containerPort
# targetPort in svc must match containerPort in pod

# Step 5 — fix
k edit svc <svc>

Services select pods, not deployments. Match pod LABELS, not deployment name.

NetworkPolicy Reflex Link to heading

Before writing any NetworkPolicy — check labels first:

k get pods --show-labels

Quick Reference — Most Common Imperatives Link to heading

# Pod
k run <n> --image <image>

# Deployment
k create deploy <n> --image <image> --replicas 3

# Service (expose)
k expose <resource> <n> --name <svc-name> --type <type> --port <port> --target-port <target> -n <ns>

# ConfigMap
k create cm <n> --from-literal key=value

# Secret
k create secret generic <n> --from-literal key=value

# ServiceAccount
k create sa <n>

# Role
k create role <n> --verb get,list --resource pods

# RoleBinding
k create rolebinding <n> --role <role> --user <user>

# ClusterRole
k create clusterrole <n> --verb get,list --resource pods

# ClusterRoleBinding
k create clusterrolebinding <n> --clusterrole <role> --user <user>

# Job
k create job <n> --image <image>

# CronJob
k create cronjob <n> --image <image> --schedule "*/5 * * * *"

Docs Search Terms (kubernetes.io/docs) Link to heading

CategoryResourceSearch Term
Configenv envFrom ConfigMapenvfrom
env envFrom Secretenvfrom secret
ResourceQuotaquota
LimitRangeranges
WorkloadInit containersinit
Multi-containersidecar
Probesliveness
Lifecycle hookslifecycle attach
CRD / CRcrd
**StoragePV/PVCpv
Volumesvolumes
SchedulingAffinityaffinity
Tolerationstaint
iSecuritySecurityContextsecurity context
NetworkingNetworkPolicynetpol
Ingressingress
Namespace label (kubernetes.io/metadata.name)well-known labels
ControllersStatefulSetstatefulset
DaemonSetdaemonset
HPAhpa walkthrough