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.
The information below reflects the 2026 syllabus defined by
Linux-Foundation.
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