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The Linux Foundation / CNCFCKA
Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
Exam overview, official domain weights and free sample questions. Subscribers get 230 practice questions, 121 flashcards, 4 labs, a study guide and video lessons for this exam.
Exam at a glance
- Exam code
- CKA
- Questions
- not published (performance-based tasks)
- Time
- 120 minutes
- Question types
- performance-based command-line tasks
- Passing score
- 66%
- Exam fee
- $445 (exam only). $625 with a THRIVE-ONE annual subscription. Other bundles are listed. Includes two exam attempts and two exam simulation attempts
- Delivery
- online, remotely proctored
- Prerequisites
- None published
- Renewal
- Valid 2 years (certifications earned before April 1, 2024 are valid 3 years). Renew by retaking and passing the exam before it expires
- Version notes
- Not a fixed retirement. The curriculum updates with Kubernetes releases
From the official exam page (checked 2026-11-09). Always confirm details with the vendor: official exam page, official objectives.
Domains and weights
Storage10%
- 1.1 Implement storage classes and dynamic volume provisioning
- 1.2 Configure volume types, access modes and reclaim policies
- 1.3 Manage persistent volumes and persistent volume claims
Troubleshooting30%
- 2.1 Troubleshoot clusters and nodes
- 2.2 Troubleshoot cluster components
- 2.3 Monitor cluster and application resource usage
- 2.4 Manage and evaluate container output streams
- 2.5 Troubleshoot services and networking
Workloads and Scheduling15%
- 3.1 Understand application deployments and how to perform rolling update and rollbacks
- 3.2 Use ConfigMaps and Secrets to configure applications
- 3.3 Configure workload autoscaling
- 3.4 Understand the primitives used to create robust, self-healing, application deployments
- 3.5 Configure Pod admission and scheduling (limits, node affinity, etc.)
Cluster Architecture, Installation and Configuration25%
- 4.1 Manage role based access control (RBAC)
- 4.2 Prepare underlying infrastructure for installing a Kubernetes cluster
- 4.3 Create and manage Kubernetes clusters using kubeadm
- 4.4 Manage the lifecycle of Kubernetes clusters
- 4.5 Implement and configure a highly-available control plane
- 4.6 Use Helm and Kustomize to install cluster components
- 4.7 Understand extension interfaces (CNI, CSI, CRI, etc.)
- 4.8 Understand CRDs, install and configure operators
Services and Networking20%
- 5.1 Understand connectivity between Pods
- 5.2 Define and enforce Network Policies
- 5.3 Use ClusterIP, NodePort, LoadBalancer service types and endpoints
- 5.4 Use the Gateway API to manage Ingress traffic
- 5.5 Know how to use Ingress controllers and Ingress resources
- 5.6 Understand and use CoreDNS
Free sample questions
Original questions in the style of the exam. Pick an answer to see the explanation.
Sample question 1 · Storage
A PVC requesting 20Gi with no storageClassName stays Pending in a new cluster. There are no PVs, and 'kubectl get storageclass' shows two classes, neither marked (default). What is the most likely fix?
Correct — “Mark one StorageClass as the cluster default, or set storageClassName on the PVC”: Without a default class (annotation storageclass.kubernetes.io/is-default-class="true"), a PVC that omits storageClassName has nothing to dynamically provision it. Incorrect — “Restart the kube-controller-manager static Pod”: Its PV controller would still find no class to provision with. Incorrect — “Restart the kube-scheduler”: The scheduler doesn't provision volumes; binding waits on a provisioner. Incorrect — “Switch the PVC access mode to ReadWriteMany so any available provisioner can satisfy it”: Access mode changes don't solve the missing class.
Sample question 2 · Troubleshooting
Node worker2 shows NotReady. You SSH in and find that 'systemctl status kubelet' reports inactive (dead). What is the best next step?
Correct — “Run systemctl enable --now kubelet, then check journalctl -u kubelet if it fails”: The node reports status through kubelet; restoring it and checking its logs is the direct path. Incorrect — “Restart CoreDNS”: DNS doesn't affect node Ready status. Incorrect — “Restart kube-proxy on the control plane”: kube-proxy doesn't determine node readiness. Incorrect — “Delete the node object with kubectl delete node and rejoin it to the cluster from scratch”: Drastic and unnecessary before trying to start the service.
Sample question 3 · Workloads and Scheduling
You updated Deployment web to image v2 and users see errors. How do you return to the previous working revision?
Incorrect — “kubectl rollout pause deployment/web”: Pausing stops further changes but keeps v2. Correct — “kubectl rollout undo deployment/web”: Rolls back to the previous ReplicaSet revision. Incorrect — “kubectl scale deployment web --replicas=0”: Scaling to zero removes all capacity. Incorrect — “kubectl delete deployment web”: Deleting causes an outage rather than restoring v1.
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