How to prepare for CKA?

Credits: AI generated image

A friend asked me suggestions for getting CKA certified. I passed CKA a year ago. Things have not changed much. I will cover aspects from registration to publishing the certification in this blog post.

Registering for the certification:

Create a account on Linux Foundation Official Website. Make sure the email is your personal one as all future certification will be linked with this account.

Enroll into the certification:

At the time of writing this blog, Linux Foundation is about to start Cyber Monday deals. This is the best time of the year to purchase voucher for the exam. However, if the credit card used while purchasing the voucher is not on your name, you will be restricted to individual certifications instead of combo deals. Head to the link below and purchase the voucher. CKA enrollment link

Preparing for the exam:

The best place to prepare for CKA if not taken any other course is Kodekloud on internet. They have labs which are adequate for the preparation. I am not covering why its is the preferred choice as you may have observed over the internet that it has become the defacto portal for CKA enthusiast. They have now become an official training partners.

• Carefully look at the syllabus. Since it provides you 1 year for preparing for the exam, you will notice changes in the syllabus too.

• To help you perform the exam quickly, one must be well tuned to the tools use din the exam. This course will help you bridge this gap. Tips

• Practice Practice Practice. These free labs will cover most of the syllabus and practicing them over and over again will tune your muscle memeory to quickly implement solutions in the exam.

• There will be certain topics you are not comfortable with. There is more than sufficient content available on youtube to clear those doubts. I had problems with network policies and a gentleman on youtube covered all aspects of it. youtube

• Stop looking for dumps, these are scams and waste your time and money.

• You will have access to official kubernetes [documentation]{https://kubernetes.io/} and blogs. Make sure you know the documentation well. So that you can take help from it in a snap.

• The official documentaion also has [cheat sheet]{https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubectl/quick-reference/} which can be referenced. You can search cheat sheet on the documentation page and open it. No need to remember URL for the exams.

Schedulting the exam:

Once you are comfortable on killercoda, you should head to the first attempt of your exam. You will have to go to teh linux foundation portal and schedule your exam. You will be provided with a free killer.sh exam voucher. This exam will provide you an exam like environment which could be used for 24 hours. The difficulty level fo this exam is very high. Therefore do not feel overwhelemed by the result. The take away should be that you are comfortable with the exam environment. But to leverage this exam enviroment and practice it over and over again.

You can reschedule exam 24 hours prior. I once scheduled the exam at early morning of 2AM. I don’t think anyone needs to take so much of physical trouble to appear for this exam. Just plan your date and time in advance and don’t wait for the last day. Linux Foundation is generous in extending the dates with valid reasons but 1 year is a solid time.

On the exam day:

• Make sure you are well slept and relaxed.
• The room should be according to PSI norms. PSI is the agency which conducts the exam. Provides a proctor and a browser where the exam is conducted.
• Make sure the webcam you have has auto-zoom functionality so that the ID veriication can be done. Though in my last exam, you could use your mobile device to upload IDs too.
• Multiple monitors are not allowed.
• Use larger monitors or laptop. Avoid giving exams on laptops with tiny screens.
• Attempt all those questions that you know well, mark for which you have doubt and move on.

The Result:

• It takes upto 24 hours for the result to be announced and it will be emailed to you.
• If paased, Congratulations!
• If failed, Congratulations!, you appeared for a performance based, respected exam and there are very good chances for you to crack this one in few weeks. But don’t delay. Work on your weaknesses and thrive.
• The certification will be provided by credly which you can use on digital mediums.

Bonus Tips

• Use replace command instead of deleting and creating same pods.
• Use –force while deleting pods command. Some pods take too mcuh time otherwise.
• Learn to use kubectl explain command when learning
• Can practice these CKAD problems. The repo is well maintained and the CKS exam is build on top of the CKAS exam knowledge. The repo
• Make sure you do not fail to perform Cluster upgrade problem. It is guranteed to come in exam. You should try breaking things by running commands in jumbled way so that you understand how to fix even if you break the cluster in exam.
• look events in a pod when logs not visible

  kubectl get event --field-selector involvedObject.name=evilpod
  

• Should be able to write 2-5 lines of scripts in bash.
• Should be able to use network tools to check and troubleshoot network connectivity.
• Don’t miss on learning jq, it will save you time. Questions related to it will be easy and pattern will be same.
• Commands like grep, awk will be often used.
• Inpiration. This is a show called klustered. I use to watch this before deciding to get CKA certified. It will encourage you to leave your life for literally a terminal illness. :-P Ignore this if you already don’t have a life.