KCNA Exam Information and Outline
Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate
KCNA Exam Syllabus & Study Guide
Before you start practicing with our exam simulator, it is essential to understand the official KCNA exam objectives. This course outline serves as your roadmap, breaking down exactly which technical domains and skills will be tested. By reviewing the syllabus, you can identify your strengths and focus your study time on the areas where you need the most improvement.
The information below reflects the latest 2026 course contents as defined by Linux-Foundation. We provide this detailed breakdown to help you align your preparation with the actual exam format, ensuring there are no surprises on test day. Use this outline as a checklist to track your progress as you move through our practice question banks.
Below are complete topics detail with latest syllabus and course outline, that will help you good knowledge about exam objectives and topics that you have to prepare. These contents are covered in questions and answers pool of exam.
Number of Questions: Approximately 60-70 questions.
Question Types: Multiple-choice- multiple-select- and true/false.
Duration: 90 minutes (1.5 hours).
Passing Score: The passing score is not publicly disclosed by CNCF.
Language: English.
Delivery Mode: Online proctored exam.
- Kubernetes Architecture:
- Master node components (API Server- Scheduler- Controller Manager- etcd)
- Worker node components (kubelet- kube-proxy- container runtime)
- Cluster communication and networking
- Kubernetes Objects:
- Pods- Deployments- Services- ConfigMaps- Secrets- Namespaces
- ReplicaSets- StatefulSets- DaemonSets
- Jobs and CronJobs
- Kubernetes Operations:
- Basic kubectl commands (create- get- describe- delete- apply)
- Debugging and troubleshooting
- Resource management (requests- limits- quotas)
- Pod- Node- Cluster
- API Server- etcd- kubelet
- YAML- manifest files
- Declarative vs. imperative commands
- Container Basics:
- Containerization concepts (Docker- container images- registries)
- Container lifecycle (start- stop- restart)
- Orchestration Features:
- Scaling applications (manual and autoscaling)
- Rolling updates and rollbacks
- Self-healing and fault tolerance
- Networking and Storage:
- Kubernetes networking model (Pod networking- Services- Ingress)
- Persistent Volumes (PVs) and Persistent Volume Claims (PVCs)
- Storage Classes
- Docker- OCI (Open Container Initiative)
- Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA)
- ClusterIP- NodePort- LoadBalancer
- Ingress Controller- CNI (Container Network Interface)
- Cloud-Native Principles:
- Microservices architecture
- DevOps and CI/CD pipelines
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
- Cloud-Native Tools:
- Helm (package manager for Kubernetes)
- Prometheus (monitoring and alerting)
- Envoy (service proxy)
- Istio (service mesh)
- Cloud-Native Security:
- Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
- Network policies
- Secrets management
- Microservices- monoliths
- CI/CD- GitOps
- Helm charts- Istio sidecar
- RBAC- NetworkPolicy
- Design Principles:
- Scalability- resilience- and portability
- Twelve-Factor App methodology
- Deployment Strategies:
- Blue-green deployments
- Canary deployments
- A/B testing
- Observability and Monitoring:
- Logging- metrics- and tracing
- Tools like Fluentd- Jaeger- and Grafana
- Twelve-Factor App
- Blue-green deployment- Canary release
- Observability- tracing- metrics
- CNCF Projects:
- Overview of CNCF projects
- Kubernetes
- Prometheus
- Envoy
- Helm
- Graduated- incubating- and sandbox projects
- Open Source and Community:
- Contribution to open-source projects
- CNCF community and resources
- Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Cloud:
- Running Kubernetes across multiple clouds
- Hybrid cloud strategies
- CNCF landscape
- Graduated projects- incubating projects
- Multi-cloud- hybrid cloud