2021 CKA tips and tricks
When it started ?
So I started preparing for the exam in late 2020 and booked the exam 3 weeks ahead. As I was also involved in my company project activities so taking time out from it was little challenging but Christmas holidays gave me enough time to prepare.
How I prepared ?
- Udemy course by Mumshad Mannambeth and the practice labs on kodecloud (very helpful)
- Kubernetes task (very helpful)
- Some of the stories and GitHub links which I found very helpful (given below)
https://github.com/David-VTUK/CKA-StudyGuide
https://github.com/dgkanatsios/CKAD-exercises
What changed in new exam ?
New exam is now 2 hours and 17 questions, so more like its CKAD now. There will be multiple clusters/contexts and for each questions there will be command to change to particular context . After changing the cluster/context using copy + paste command , always check the namespace you are currently in. (use kubectl config get-contexts)
My attempt
I attempted the exam on 30th Dec night , thinking to earn a certification by saying goodbye to 2020 on good note and but I missed it by slight margin , though I was not feeling good after the exam , so expected this result.
But this failure showed me some of my weak concepts and if I didn’t had failed , may be I never have gone through the documents again to clear those concepts. So this time I prepared again and attempted on 10th Jan and after exam I was feeling much confident.
And Yes I did passed my exam on 12th Jan 2021.
Important do’s and don’ts
- Lower the volume or do zero volume in your laptop/desktop so that you will not get the echo voice.
- Understand how and where to search in Kubernetes documentation . In the documentation you can see in right corner specific heading , bookmark those specific .
3. You don’t need to create any alias I believe , time is sufficient to type the commands but again its all depend how you like to work on terminal.
4. tmux is also not required , but again depend on you.
5. Don’t remember the long commands , try to use help option as much as possible. also use “kubectl api-resources” and “kubectl explain” commands to understand the CLI structure .
Lessons Learned
- Clear your concepts properly if its scc can be configure inside or pod or container or both.
2. Understand which parameter will configure inside pods ,which inside containers and which can configure in both (i.e. env , secrets, configmaps)
3. Understand the certificates of all the control plane resources , users and how you can configure roles and binding using certificates .
4. Always make sure to check the context and namespace you are attempting the next questions. (use CTRL+R and search the previous command)
5. If you get difficult questions initially and feel nervous , go and do the easy ones and then comeback and attempt the difficult because time is very strict .
Last I have created GitHub link with my CKA notes .