CKAD - Guide

✅ CKAD Post-Guide: Hands-On & Real-World Focused

🧠 Assumes you’ve already covered the theory and now need to practice and pass.

 

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📌 1. Know the Exam Environment

• Time limit: 2 hours

• Passing score: ~66%

• Browser-based exam with one terminal + one notepad

• Kubernetes version: Check current version at Linux Foundation CKAD

• You get access to the K8s docs during the exam

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🧰 2. Setup Practice Lab (Realistic & Fast)

Use Killer.sh, KodeKloud Labs, or local setup:

# Quick local setup using kind + kubectl + kubens/kubectx
brew install kind kubectl kubectx
kind create cluster

Get muscle memory with:

alias k='kubectl'
alias kgp='kubectl get pods'
alias kga='kubectl get all'
alias kaf='kubectl apply -f'
alias kdp='kubectl describe pod'

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🧪 3. Practice-First Topics (Sorted by Frequency)

Topic	Practice Focus
Pods/Deployments	Create, update images, env vars, restartPolicy
Namespaces	Create, switch, use --namespace flag
ConfigMaps & Secrets	Mount as env & volume
Volumes	emptyDir, hostPath, configMap, secret
Probes	livenessProbe, readinessProbe syntax
Jobs & CronJobs	Retry strategy, schedules
Labels/Selectors	Filtering with kubectl
Service types	ClusterIP, NodePort, headless
NetworkPolicies	Allow/deny specific traffic
Resource Limits	resources.requests and limits
Ingress	YAML, path-based rules
RBAC (basic)	Roles, RoleBindings scoped to namespace
Multicontainer Pods	Sidecars, shared volumes

🧠 Learn by writing YAML manually AND using imperative kubectl commands.

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🧑‍💻 4. Imperative Command Cheatsheet (Must-Know)

# Create pod with image
kubectl run nginx --image=nginx

# Create deployment
kubectl create deployment myapp --image=nginx

# Expose deployment
kubectl expose deployment myapp --port=80 --type=NodePort

# Create configmap
kubectl create configmap myconfig --from-literal=env=prod

# Create secret
kubectl create secret generic mysecret --from-literal=password=pass123

# Create job
kubectl create job myjob --image=busybox -- echo "hello"

# Create cronjob
kubectl create cronjob mycron --image=busybox --schedule="*/1 * * * *" -- echo "hi"

# Dry run for YAML
kubectl run nginx --image=nginx --dry-run=client -o yaml > pod.yaml

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📖 5. YAML Practice = Pass

Master these YAML templates:

• Pod

• Deployment

• ConfigMap

• Secret

• Service

• Ingress

• Job/CronJob

• Volume mounts

• Probes

📌 Use kubectl explain to understand fields:

kubectl explain pod.spec.containers.livenessProbe

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🧭 6. Exam Day Tips

• 📝 Use the notepad to copy-paste common YAML snippets

• ⌨️ Get very fast with Vim or Nano (Vim is default)

• ⌛ Don't spend >10 mins on any one question

• 🌐 Bookmark these pages before exam:

  • https://kubernetes.io/docs 

  • https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubectl/cheatsheet/ 

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🏁 7. Final Practice Resources

• Killer.sh CKAD Simulator

• KodeKloud CKAD Labs

• Practice from the CKAD Curriculum

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