Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) Exam Preparation Guide V1.35 (2026)

This is a detailed study guide with tips and practical examples to ace the Certified Kubernetes Administrator exam.

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📚 CKA Exam Detailed Study Guide

Source: CNCF CKA Curriculum v1.35 | Kubernetes version: v1.35 | Updated: 2026

#	Domain	Weight	Study Notes	Key Topics
1	Cluster Architecture, Installation & Configuration	25%	Notes	RBAC, kubeadm, Helm, Kustomize, CRDs, Operators
2	Workloads & Scheduling	15%	Notes	Deployments, ConfigMaps, Secrets, HPA, affinity
3	Storage	10%	Notes	StorageClasses, PV, PVC, dynamic provisioning
4	Services & Networking	20%	Notes	NetworkPolicies, Gateway API, Ingress, CoreDNS
5	Troubleshooting	30%	Notes	Pod failures, node issues, control plane, networking

[!TIP] Troubleshooting (30%) is the highest-weighted domain. Invest at least 1/3 of your study time there.

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Cluster Architecture, Installation & Configuration 25%

  📖 Study Notes

#	Topic
1	🔐 Manage role-based access control (RBAC)
2	🖥️ Prepare underlying infrastructure for installing a Kubernetes cluster
3	⚙️ Create and manage Kubernetes clusters using kubeadm
4	🔄 Manage the lifecycle of Kubernetes clusters
5	📦 Use Helm and Kustomize to install cluster components
6	🔌 Understand extension interfaces (CNI, CSI, CRI, etc.)
7	🧩 Understand CRDs, install and configure operators

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Workloads & Scheduling 15%

  📖 Study Notes

#	Topic
1	🔁 Understand deployments and how to perform rolling updates and rollbacks
2	🗂️ Use ConfigMaps and Secrets to configure applications
3	📈 Configure workload autoscaling
4	🛡️ Understand the primitives used to create robust, self-healing application deployments
5	🎯 Configure Pod admission and scheduling (limits, node affinity, etc.)

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Storage 10%

  📖 Study Notes

#	Topic
1	🏷️ Implement storage classes and dynamic volume provisioning
2	🔧 Configure volume types, access modes and reclaim policies
3	📀 Manage persistent volumes and persistent volume claims

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Services & Networking 20%

  📖 Study Notes

#	Topic
1	🔗 Understand connectivity between Pods
2	🛡️ Define and enforce Network Policies
3	🔀 Use ClusterIP, NodePort, LoadBalancer service types and endpoints
4	🚪 Use the Gateway API to manage Ingress traffic
5	🗺️ Know how to use Ingress controllers and Ingress resources
6	🔍 Understand and use CoreDNS

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Troubleshooting 30% Highest Weight

  📖 Study Notes

[!IMPORTANT] Troubleshooting is worth 30% of your score 👉 The single largest domain. Dedicate at least one-third of your study time here.

#	Topic
1	🖥️ Troubleshoot clusters and nodes
2	⚙️ Troubleshoot cluster components
3	📊 Monitor cluster and application resource usage
4	📋 Manage and evaluate container output streams
5	🌐 Troubleshoot services and networking

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1. Cluster Architecture, Installation & Configuration (25%)

Following are the subtopics under Cluster Architecture, Installation & Configuration

Prepare underlying infrastructure for installing a Kubernetes cluster.

Setup Virtual Machines : Ensure that each virtual machine (VM) meets the minimum system requirements for setting up a Kubernetes cluster.

Kubeadm Cluster Prerequisites : Ensure that all VMs can communicate with each other, as Kubernetes requires all nodes to have unrestricted communication for pod-to-pod networking.

Provision underlying infrastructure to deploy a Kubernetes cluster : Tools like VirtualBox, VMware, or KVM can be used to set up virtual machines locally and for cloud environments, consider providers like AWS, GCP, or Azure for flexibility and scalability.

Multi Part Kubeadm Cluster Initialization

Kubeadm Cluster Bootstrap : Initialize a Kubernetes cluster using a multi-part kubeadm configuration file, customizing the Kubelet, Kube Proxy, and Scheduler settings.

# Edit the config file (Sample Configuration)
---
apiVersion: kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta4
kind: InitConfiguration
localAPIEndpoint:
  advertiseAddress: "172.30.1.2"
  bindPort: 6443
nodeRegistration:
  name: "controlplane"
  criSocket: "unix:///var/run/containerd/containerd.sock"
  imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent

---
apiVersion: kubeadm.k8s.io/v1beta4
kind: ClusterConfiguration
kubernetesVersion: "1.35.0"
controlPlaneEndpoint: "172.30.1.2:6443"
networking:
  podSubnet: "10.244.0.0/16"
  serviceSubnet: "10.96.0.0/12"
  dnsDomain: "cluster.local"
imageRepository: "registry.k8s.io"
etcd:
  local:
    dataDir: "/var/lib/etcd"
controllerManager:
  extraArgs:
    - name: "node-cidr-mask-size"
      value: "24"
scheduler:
  extraArgs:
    - name: "leader-elect"
      value: "true"

---
apiVersion: kubelet.config.k8s.io/v1beta1
kind: KubeletConfiguration
cgroupDriver: "systemd"
syncFrequency: "1m"
failSwapOn: false
rotateCertificates: true

---
apiVersion: kubeproxy.config.k8s.io/v1alpha1
kind: KubeProxyConfiguration
mode: "ipvs"
clusterCIDR: "10.244.0.0/16"
conntrack:
  maxPerCore: 32768
  min: 131072
  tcpCloseWaitTimeout: "1h"
  tcpEstablishedTimeout: "24h"

# Initialize the cluster using the config file
sudo kubeadm init --config=[CONFIG_FILE] --ignore-preflight-errors=NumCPU

# Configure the Kubectl access [Command will be shown in the output]
mkdir -p $HOME/.kube
sudo cp -i /etc/kubernetes/admin.conf $HOME/.kube/config
sudo chown $(id -u):$(id -g) $HOME/.kube/config

# Install the CNI plugin
kubectl apply -f [CNI_URL]

# Join worker nodes [Command will be shown in the output]
ssh [WORKER_NODE]

kubeadm join ....

Manage the lifecycle of Kubernetes clusters.

Perform Cluster Version upgrade Using Kubeadm : Managing the lifecycle involves upgrading clusters, managing control plane nodes, and ensuring consistency across versions.

Understand extension interfaces (CNI, CSI, CRI, etc.).

Container Runtime Interface (CRI) : Kubernetes uses the CRI to communicate with container runtimes.

# Check container runtime
crictl info

# List all containers
crictl ps

# View specific container details
crictl inspect <container-id>

# View container logs
crictl logs <container-id>

Network Plugin : Kubernetes uses network plugins (CNI) to manage pod networking, get a good understanding of popular plugins like Calico, Flannel, and Weave Net, and understand the role of CNIs in providing network connectivity, security policies, and IPAM.

# List installed CNI plugins
ls /etc/cni/net.d/

# Install the Tigera Operator
kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectcalico/calico/v3.31.3/manifests/operator-crds.yaml
kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectcalico/calico/v3.31.3/manifests/tigera-operator.yaml

# Download the Calico Custom Resources
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/projectcalico/calico/v3.31.3/manifests/custom-resources.yaml

# Get the cluster Pod CIDR information
kubectl -n kube-system get pod -l component=kube-controller-manager -o yaml | grep -i cluster-cidr

# Modify the Custom Resource manifest with the cluster CIDR
vi custom-resource.yaml

apiVersion: operator.tigera.io/v1
kind: Installation
metadata:
  name: default
spec:
  calicoNetwork:
    ipPools:
    - name: default-ipv4-ippool
      blockSize: 26
      cidr: 10.244.0.0/16
      encapsulation: VXLANCrossSubnet
      nat