Kubernetes & CKA Concepts
The container orchestration domain of the Digital Brain. Curated for the CKA Certification journey.
Core Concepts
| Page | Description |
|---|---|
| CKA Certification | Exam structure, domains, and preparation strategy |
| CKA Study Roadmap | The 40-day learning plan and daily schedule |
| Why Kubernetes? | Why K8s exists: problems it solves and when NOT to use it |
| Kubernetes Namespaces | Logical isolation, multi-tenancy, resource quotas, and default namespaces |
Prerequisites
- Docker Fundamentals — Containers, images, and the Docker workflow (Day 1 of CKA course)
Architecture & Installation
| Page | Description |
|---|---|
| Kubernetes Architecture | Control Plane, Worker Nodes, component deep-dive, communication flows |
| Kind Cluster Setup | Local multi-node K8s cluster with Kind (Kubernetes IN Docker) |
(More to be populated as ingestion progresses)
- kubeadm Installation
- High Availability (HA) Clusters
- etcd Backup & Restore
Workloads & Scheduling
| Page | Description |
|---|---|
| Pod Fundamentals | Pods: the smallest deployable unit, imperative vs declarative, YAML basics |
| Multi-Container Pods | Sidecar, init, adapter, and ambassador patterns; shared namespaces and volumes |
| Init Containers | Pre-start setup, validation, and migration containers |
| Sidecar Pattern | Auxiliary containers for logging, monitoring, proxying, and TLS termination |
| Kubernetes Environment Variables | ConfigMap, Secret, Downward API, and literal injection patterns |
| Pod Commands and Arguments | Overriding ENTRYPOINT and CMD in container specs |
| Deployment, ReplicaSet & Replication Controller | Workload controllers: self-healing, scaling, rolling updates, and rollback |
| Kubernetes DaemonSet | Node-level workload: one Pod per node for monitoring, CNI, and agents |
| Kubernetes Jobs | Batch execution: finite tasks that run to completion with retry logic |
| Kubernetes CronJobs | Scheduled batch: time-based Job creation with cron expressions |
| Kubernetes Static Pods | Node-local Pods managed by kubelet, used for control plane bootstrapping |
| Kubernetes Labels and Selectors | Metadata and query system that binds Services, controllers, and Pods |
| Kubernetes Manual Scheduling | Bypassing the scheduler with nodeName, nodeSelector, and taints/tolerations |
| Kubernetes Taints and Tolerations | Negative scheduling: node taints, Pod tolerations, effects, and built-in taint catalog |
| Kubernetes Node Affinity | Advanced positive scheduling: rich operators, soft/hard constraints, and the taints+affinity production pattern |
(More to be populated as ingestion progresses)
- StatefulSets
- Resource Quotas & Limits
Services & Networking
| Page | Description |
|---|---|
| Kubernetes Services | Service abstraction, port concepts, Endpoints, and imperative commands |
| Kubernetes Service Types | Deep dive into ClusterIP, NodePort, LoadBalancer, and ExternalName |
(More to be populated as ingestion progresses)
- Ingress & Ingress Controllers
- Network Policies
- CoreDNS
- CNI Plugins (Calico, Cilium, Flannel)
Storage
(To be populated as ingestion progresses)
- Volumes & PersistentVolumes
- PersistentVolumeClaims
- StorageClasses
- Stateful Storage Patterns
Security
(To be populated as ingestion progresses)
- RBAC (Roles, RoleBindings, ClusterRoles)
- Service Accounts
- Pod Security Standards
- TLS & Certificates
Troubleshooting
(To be populated as ingestion progresses)
- Node & Pod Failure Diagnostics
- Control Plane Troubleshooting
- Networking Issues
- Storage Failures
kubectl & CLI
(To be populated as ingestion progresses)
- Essential kubectl Commands
- kubectl Cheatsheet
- Imperative vs Declarative Management
Tags: kubernetes cka devops containers scheduling networking security troubleshooting