Certification Tips

Many learners want a certificate, to prove their skills. The Linux Foundation offers three popular Kubernetes exams. They are practical. You solve real tasks, in a real terminal, against a time limit. In this lesson, you will learn what each one tests, and how to prepare.

• Three popular exams
• Practical, in a real terminal
• Prepare by practising

The three exams

Here are the three exams. The C K A D, certified Kubernetes application developer, tests building and running applications, with pods, deployments, configuration, probes, and services. The C K A, certified Kubernetes administrator, tests running clusters, with installation, upgrades, backups, networking, storage, and troubleshooting. And the C K S, certified Kubernetes security specialist, adds hardening, policies, and supply chain security. It requires a valid C K A. This course covers the knowledge for all three, though the exams demand speed.

How to prepare

Preparation is mostly practice. Work in a real cluster, every day, and type the commands, instead of only watching. Learn to generate Y A M L fast, with dry run, and kube control create. Get used to kube control explain, because the documentation is available during the exam. Set up your shell with short aliases. Practise troubleshooting broken clusters, because that is where most time is lost. And do timed practice exams, so the clock holds no surprise.

Shell setup that saves time

Here is a small setup used by many candidates. An alias, k, for kube control, saves thousands of keystrokes. A variable holds the dry run options, so a new Y A M L file takes seconds. Shell completion finishes commands and resource names when you press tab. You are allowed to prepare these in the first minute of the exam, and it pays back many times.

alias k=kubectl
export do="--dry-run=client -o yaml"
source <(kubectl completion zsh)
complete -F __start_kubectl k

k run web --image=nginx:1.27 $do > pod.yaml

Summary