CKA (Other exams) study guide
CKA · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) is a vendor-neutral, proctored, performance-based certification created by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation in collaboration with The Linux Foundation. It is aimed at engineers who administer Kubernetes clusters day to day - platform, DevOps and SRE practitioners who need to prove they can operate a cluster rather than just describe one. The CKA study guide has 5 sections and about 1,992 words.
01Cluster Architecture, Installation & Configuration
The Cluster Architecture, Installation & Configuration domain covers the control plane and node lifecycle: kubeadm-based cluster creation and upgrades, etcd backup and restore, RBAC, and extending the API with CRDs and operators. Expect tasks that require editing YAML and verifying the result from the command line, not multiple-choice recall.
369 words, about 2 min02Workloads & Scheduling
The Workloads & Scheduling domain tests whether you can run applications reliably: Deployments and rolling updates, probes, resource requests and limits, ConfigMaps and Secrets, and scheduler constraints such as node selectors, affinity, taints, and tolerations. Most tasks are small YAML edits followed by rollout and scheduling checks.
414 words, about 2 min03Services & Networking
The Services & Networking domain covers how Pods find and reach each other: Service types and endpoints, CoreDNS names, Ingress resources, and NetworkPolicies. CKA tasks often ask you to expose an app, fix a Service with no endpoints, or write a policy that permits only one traffic path.
406 words, about 2 min04Storage
The Storage domain tests persistent and ephemeral volumes: PersistentVolumes, PersistentVolumeClaims, StorageClasses, access modes, and mounting claims into Pods. You should be able to create a claim, bind it, mount it, and explain why a claim is Pending.
404 words, about 2 min05Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting is the largest CKA domain. It tests a repeatable method for finding faults in Pods, controllers, nodes, networking, and the control plane, using events, logs, describe output, and node-level tools.
399 words, about 2 min