This intensive, hands-on course prepares learners to pass the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam and become confident Kubernetes administrators. You’ll build clusters (kind/minikube/k3s and kubeadm), deploy and scale real applications, implement networking and storage, enforce security with RBAC and pod controls, and diagnose failures using logs, events, and component-level debugging. Every module contains guided labs, challenge exercises, and timed practical tasks that mirror the CKA performance format.

Target Audience

• System administrators, DevOps engineers, and SREs moving into Kubernetes operations

• Developers who manage runtime environments and want infra skills

• Candidates preparing specifically for the CKA exam

System administrators, DevOps engineers, and SREs moving into Kubernetes operations

Developers who manage runtime environments and want infra skills

Candidates preparing specifically for the CKA exam

Learning Outcomes (Titles)

Install and Manage Kubernetes Clusters with kubeadm, kind, minikube, and k3s

Deploy, Manage, and Troubleshoot Workloads and Rolling Updates

Implement Kubernetes Networking, Services, Ingress, and NetworkPolicy

Manage Persistent Storage, PVCs, and Dynamic Provisioning

Enforce Security with RBAC, Service Accounts, Secrets, and Pod Security

Diagnose and Resolve Cluster and Application Failures

Automate Administration with Manifests and kubectl Best Practices

Demonstrate Exam-Ready Hands-On Skills and Time-Management Strategies

Prerequisites (brief)

• Comfortable with Linux shell and basic networking concepts.

• Basic container knowledge (images/containers).

• Access to a machine or cloud account capable of running Docker/VMs.
  (Full prerequisite checklist is provided in the course materials.)

Comfortable with Linux shell and basic networking concepts.

Basic container knowledge (images/containers).

Access to a machine or cloud account capable of running Docker/VMs.
(Full prerequisite checklist is provided in the course materials.)

Module-by-Module Breakdown

Module 1 — Foundations & kubectl

What you’ll learn: kubectl fundamentals, kubeconfig contexts, namespaces, resource manifests, and API discovery.
Hands-on labs: Create namespaces, switch contexts, inspect and patch resources, and explore the Kubernetes API.
Assessment: Practical quiz — 10 CLI tasks (timed).

Module 2 — Cluster Architecture & kubeadm

What you’ll learn: Control plane components, kubelet, container runtimes, kube-proxy, kubeadm init/join, upgrades, and basic HA concepts.
Hands-on labs: Build a 2-node kubeadm cluster, inspect manifests in /etc/kubernetes, perform a control plane upgrade in a lab.
Assessment: Lab exercise — initialize and join nodes, document component status.

Module 3 — Workloads & Scheduling

What you’ll learn: Pods, Deployments, ReplicaSets, DaemonSets, Jobs/CronJobs, probes, resource requests/limits, affinity/taints/tolerations.
Hands-on labs: Create deployments with readiness/liveness probes, simulate pod failures, perform rollouts and rollbacks.
Assessment: Timed practical — recover a failing deployment and implement autoscaling.

Module 4 — Services & Networking

What you’ll learn: Pod networking basics, Service types (ClusterIP/NodePort/LoadBalancer), Endpoints, Ingress controllers, CoreDNS, and NetworkPolicy.
Hands-on labs: Deploy an Ingress controller and app, write NetworkPolicy to restrict traffic, debug DNS problems.
Assessment: Networking troubleshooting mini-exam (DNS + NetworkPolicy tasks).

Module 5 — Storage

What you’ll learn: PV/PVC lifecycle, StorageClass, dynamic provisioning, volume types, access modes, reclaim policies.
Hands-on labs: Create StorageClasses and dynamic PVCs, move data between pods, troubleshoot volume mount problems.
Assessment: Practical exercise — provision persistent storage and validate failover behavior.

Module 6 — Security & RBAC

What you’ll learn: Roles, RoleBindings, ClusterRoles, ServiceAccounts, Secrets, ConfigMaps, Pod Security Admission and best practices for least privilege.
Hands-on labs: Create least-privilege roles, lock down access to resources, audit service account permissions.
Assessment: RBAC challenge — restrict an app so only a specific service account can access secrets.

Module 7 — Maintenance & Troubleshooting

What you’ll learn: Node lifecycle (cordon/drain), monitoring basics (kubectl top), reading logs and events, debugging kubelet/kube-proxy/API server, and common failure patterns.
Hands-on labs: Induce node and pod failures, gather logs and events, diagnose root causes and recover services.
Assessment: Full troubleshooting lab (timed) covering multiple simultaneous faults.