How I Passed the CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator) Exam
I’ve just passed the CKA. 🎉 Here’s exactly how I prepared, what I practiced, how I set up my terminal, and the mindset I used on exam day. No spoilers, no NDA violations—just the process that worked for me. TL;DR Learn by doing: daily labs > passive videos. Automate muscle memory: aliases, completion, templates. Use kubectl explain + --dry-run=client -o yaml to avoid YAML typos. Be ruthless with time: solve, verify, move on, return later. My 4-Week Study Plan Week 1 — Core Workloads & Kubectl Pods, Deployments, DaemonSets, Jobs/CronJobs Services (ClusterIP/NodePort/LoadBalancer), Probes, ConfigMaps, Secrets Hands-on: create → tweak → roll back → scale Week 2 — Cluster Admin Basics Control plane components, kubelet & static Pods, kubeadm basics Node ops: cordon/drain/uncordon, taints/tolerations Backups (etcd snapshot/restore concepts), upgrades flow Week 3 — Networking & Storage CNI basics, NetworkPolicies, Ingress StorageClasses, PV/PVC, CSI, access modes, reclaim policies Week 4 — Security & Troubleshooting RBAC (Roles, ClusterRoles, Bindings), ServiceAccounts Scheduling (affinity/anti-affinity, topology spread), resources/limits Troubleshooting: events/logs, image pulls, CrashLoopBackOff, DNS Daily rhythm: 60–90 min labbing + 15–30 min notes + quick review of mistakes. ...