CKA — Certified Kubernetes Administrator
CKA Certification Tutorial
Welcome to the CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator) tutorial track. This series prepares you for the CKA exam by covering cluster installation, configuration, networking, storage, security, and troubleshooting from an administrator’s perspective.
What is CKA?
The CKA certification is offered by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in collaboration with The Linux Foundation. It certifies that you have the skills, knowledge, and competency to perform the responsibilities of a Kubernetes administrator.
Unlike CKAD (which focuses on application development), CKA tests your ability to build, manage, secure, and troubleshoot production Kubernetes clusters. This is the operations exam.
Exam Details
| Detail | Info |
|---|---|
| Duration | 2 hours |
| Format | Performance-based (hands-on tasks in a live cluster) |
| Passing Score | 66% |
| Questions | 15–20 performance-based tasks |
| Validity | 2 years |
| Cost | $395 USD (includes one free retake) |
| Prerequisites | None (Foundation tutorial recommended) |
CKA Exam Domains
| Domain | Weight |
|---|---|
| Cluster Architecture, Installation & Configuration | 25% |
| Workloads & Scheduling | 15% |
| Services & Networking | 20% |
| Storage | 10% |
| Troubleshooting | 30% |
What You’ll Learn
- Building Kubernetes clusters from scratch using kubeadm
- Managing cluster upgrades and etcd backup/restore
- Configuring RBAC, ServiceAccounts, and security contexts
- Deploying and scaling workloads with Deployments, ConfigMaps, and Secrets
- Configuring Services, Ingress, DNS, and NetworkPolicies
- Managing persistent storage with PV, PVC, and StorageClasses
- Troubleshooting cluster, node, and application failures
- Mastering kubectl, kubeadm, etcdctl, journalctl, and crictl
Prerequisites
Before starting this track, you should have completed the Kubernetes Foundation Tutorial or have equivalent hands-on experience with Kubernetes core concepts.
Chapters
| # | Chapter | Exam Domain |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction | Overview |
| 2 | Cluster Architecture | Architecture (25%) |
| 3 | Kubeadm Cluster Setup | Installation (25%) |
| 4 | Cluster Upgrades | Configuration (25%) |
| 5 | etcd Backup & Restore | Configuration (25%) |
| 6 | RBAC & Security | Architecture (25%) |
| 7 | Workloads & Scaling | Workloads (15%) |
| 8 | Scheduling | Workloads (15%) |
| 9 | Services & Networking | Networking (20%) |
| 10 | Ingress & DNS | Networking (20%) |
| 11 | Storage | Storage (10%) |
| 12 | Troubleshooting | Troubleshooting (30%) |
| 13 | Exam Tips & Mock Exam | All Domains |
