Preparing CKAD Certification in 2023

In this post I’m going to give you details about my experience facing the Kubernetes Application Developer Certification. I will attend to all the topics that I wish I had known before the exam. Hope you find it interesting and helpful.

Prerequisites

If we search in the official CKAD site on Linux Foundation, which provides information about the different topics covered in the course, we will find that there are no prerequisites for obtaining this certification.

However, It’s expected that you are familiar with a Linux terminal, as you will be working with it throughout the entire exam. But don’t worry, you only need to have a basic understanding of it.

Additionally, since you will be certifying in a container orchestrator like Kubernetes, it is assumed that you have some knowledge about containers. In fact, being familiar with a container provider such as Docker or Podman would be sufficient.

Exam

The exam is pure technical, there aren’t any theoretical questions.

• There are between 15-20 performance-based tasks.
• You have 2 hours to complete the CKAD exam
• The exams are proctored remotely via streaming audio, video, and screen sharing feeds through PSI Secure Browser
• You will have the result 24 hours later from the time you complete the exam.

Requisites

There are some requisites you must complete before starting the exam:

• You must fulfill the system requirements for the PSI Secure Browser.
  • You can check it here
• A reliable internet access.
• You must have a webcam capable of a 360-degree scan of the test room.
• One active monitor (Dual Monitors are not allowed) and It’s recommended:
  • A screen size of 15”.
  • A screen resolution of 1080p.

Reach 30 minutes before your scheduled exam time, you will need that time to take a photo of your identification such as your face. Then, it will assign you a proctor to ensure the room fulfill the requirements they asked. Also you will be asked to show your room from the floor until the ceiling, your desk, etc.

In my case, I have to rotate my desk to the left due to I have a white curtains with names of differents cities of the world. My room was free of paintings in the wall, shelves or any forniture in the floor.

Virtual Environment

Once the Proctor end checking your room, It will start the exam in the PSI Secure Browser. In this site you can see it more detailed.

Resources allowed during the Exam

In the exam, you are allowed to use the browser within the VM to access the following documentation and their subdomains:

• https://kubernetes.io/docs/
• https://kubernetes.io/blogs/
• https://helm.sh/docs/

Resources that would help you pass the exam

When you bought the exam certification, you will have 2 exam test simulator. This tests will help you to know your knowledge and have an idea of how works the virtual environment where you will be working during your exam. You are going to face up some questions that are more complex than ones in the real exam. If you need more CKAD test from killer.sh you can purchase in his web.

• https://killer.sh

Futhermore, there is a site has some demos with question that are similar to the exam

• https://killercoda.com/killer-shell-ckad If It’s true that this repository has exercises based on the previous certification model, I recommend extremely it. Almost
• https://github.com/dgkanatsios/CKAD-exercises This site it’s very useful to undestard how it works network policies. Also you can configure it as you wish and visualize it a beatifull and helpful diagram
• https://editor.networkpolicy.io/

Courses

I made the Kubernetes for Developers (LFD259) course and the KodeKloud CKAD course. Both courses will teach about the core components of Kubernetes and how to use it, but there are some differences between them.

Labs

In the first hand, to complete the LFD259 course you will need to create a Kubernetes Cluster, it’s recommended to create it in AWS or GCP due to the labs are tested for those enviroments. I created a local Kubernetes cluster with Kind and you can complete almost all the labs. In addition, I try it with Azure but there is some labs it doesn’t work as expected.

On the other hand, KodeKloud course grants you remote lab sessions so you don’t need to create any cluster.

Content

Both courses teach the largue majority of the content you need to pass your certification. However, the KodeKloud course talk more in detail about other topics and have differents labs to practice, such as Helm, Admission Controllers, Api Deprecations, etc. In addition, the KodeKloud course is oriented to pass your certification, with lessons focused in tips for the exam and few Mocked Exams in a Virtual Lab.

Access Time

You will have 1 year of access for the LFD259 course while for the KodeKloud course you will have access forever in the Udemy platform, with also access to the labs.

Conclusion

To sum up, I will recommend you to adquire the KodeKloud course because it has more lessons and labs explaining some concepts that I have missed in the LFD259. Also, they give you some tips to pass the exam and test your knowledge with mocked Exams.

Tips

You only have 2 hours to complete the exam so you need to manage your time. Here are some tips to feel comfortable and being productive during the exam:

• If you get stuck with one question, put the flag in that question and go to next, you will come back later to give it a shot.
• Use kubectl explain command. If you need to consult documentation about a resource such as the different configuration for the securityContext object. Remember that this command has the –recursive flag.
  • You can study the basic structure of the pod specs. At the end you can exploit with other resources such as deployments, jobs or cronjobs.
• Once I started the exam, I launched the terminal and I added the following alias and functions. It will help you to save a lot of time during your exam.

  # will already be pre-configured
  alias k=kubectl   
  # apply manifest file"
  alias kaf="kubectl apply -f"   
  # Set a namespace as the default 
  alias kn="kubectl config set-context --current --namespace"
  # function to generate a manifest for a kubernetes object k create deploy nginx --image=nginx $do
  export do="--dry-run=client -o yaml"
  # function to force the remove of a pod k delete pod x $now 
  export now="--force --grace-period 0"   
  

  I specially emphasize the kn alias because in each question you will change to different namespace so if you use it you will save a lot time typying the –namespace flag and you will reduce the possibility of making an error.