How to pass CKAD

Certified Kubernetes Application Developer exam is a hands on practical exam where you have to perform 19 tasks in a given kubernetes cluster within 2 hours. This is an open book exam where you can refer to kubernetes documentation. But you should be familiar with all the concepts because you don’t have time to waste in the exam. Here I have gathered a few tips you should follow in order to pass the exam easily.

1. Follow a good course. I can highly recommend Mumshad Mannambeth’s CKAD course in Udemy where you get a series of lectures along with practical labs through a given terminal where you can access a k8s cluster just like in the exam.
2. Get familiar with vim
:q exit
   :wq save and exit
   i start inserting text
   g goto top
   G goto bottom
   / search downwards
   ? search upwards
   dd delete (cut) line
   5dd delete 5 lines
   :8 goto 8th line
3. Setup kubectl auto complete and setup aliask with auto complete. You will save quite a lot time by this. Follow https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubectl/cheatsheet/#kubectl-autocomplete for the steps. In the exam you can get this by searching cheetsheet in the kubernetes docs.
   Use k instead of kubectl to avoid wasting time by misspellings.
4. Use imperative commands. Do not start from yamls. If a certain task cannot be done with imperative commands still use it to generate a basic yaml and then modify it. Use --dry-run=client -o yaml > my.yaml to save the command output to a file and then modify it. Here are some important imperative commands you should remember.
   k run redis --image=redis //creates a pod
   k create deployment myapp --image=nginx
k expose deployment myapp --name=mysvc --port=80 --type=NodePort
k label pod mypod mykey=myval
k create cm my-config --from-literal=key1=val1
k create secret generic my-sec --from-literal=key1=pass1
   For pv and pvc there are no imperative commands. So you will have to start from yamls for them.
5. Get familiar with kubernetes documentation. Have an idea where you can find different kinds of yaml examples. When you follow the course do the labs with the help of kubernetes documentation, not with the answer given.
6. In the exam, you will get certain question which are not clear or too lengthy or difficult to understand but worth only a little percentage of marks (2%, 3%). Flag and skip them, get to them later if you have time. Time management is crucial for passing CKAD. It is very difficult to do all the 19 questions within 2 hours, therefore skipping a couple of questions which takes a long time to do but are not worth much is fine.