CKAWorkloads & SchedulingMedium
Taint, toleration and placement
Taint a worker node and run a Pod that tolerates the taint and is placed on that node.
Two nodes · ~7 min · 6 points
- taint
- toleration
- scheduling
- nodename
goldenkube start cka-sch-001
CKA hands-on labs
Labs: PreviewCertified Kubernetes Administrator: exam-style tasks on a real kubeadm cluster on your own Mac, built and graded by the GoldenKube CLI. Each card shows the domain, the cluster topology it needs, the recommended time and its points; the scenario page has the full task text. Scenarios are verified on Kubernetes 1.37.
Preview: catalog readable, CLI not yet public
The first signed build is not on the Homebrew tap yet (pre-release). The install page describes the planned flow; the tasks below are real and public now.
Domain coverage
Published scenarios per official CKA domain, next to the domain's exam weight (checked 2026-10-23 on the official page). 37 published scenarios today.
| Domain | Exam weight | Published scenarios |
|---|---|---|
| Storage | 10% | 4 |
| Troubleshooting | 30% | 9 |
| Workloads & Scheduling | 15% | 9 |
| Cluster Architecture, Installation & Configuration | 25% | 8 |
| Services & Networking | 20% | 7 |
Mock exam mode
goldenkube exam cka draws a curriculum-weighted set: 15 tasks in 120 minutes, pass at 66%. Solutions and hints are hidden in exam mode.
Scenarios
9 of 37 scenarios match · Clear filters
CKAWorkloads & SchedulingMedium
Spread replicas across nodes
Create a Deployment whose replicas are guaranteed to land on different nodes.
Three nodes · ~8 min · 6 points
- scheduling
- topology-spread
- pod-anti-affinity
- deployment
goldenkube start cka-sch-002
CKAWorkloads & SchedulingEasy
Deployment with resource requests and a container port
Create a multi-replica Deployment with a memory request and a declared container port.
Single node · ~5 min · 4 points
- deployment
- resources
- requests
- workloads
goldenkube start cka-wkl-001
CKAWorkloads & SchedulingEasy
Rolling update of a Deployment
Update the image of a running Deployment with a rolling update and confirm all pods run the new image.
Single node · ~4 min · 4 points
- deployment
- rolling-update
- rollout
- workloads
goldenkube start cka-wkl-002
CKAWorkloads & SchedulingMedium
ConfigMap env var and Secret volume
Create a ConfigMap and a Secret and consume them from a Pod as an environment variable and a mounted volume.
Single node · ~8 min · 6 points
- configmap
- secret
- pod
- env
- volume
- workloads
goldenkube start cka-wkl-003
CKAWorkloads & SchedulingEasy
DaemonSet on every node
Run one Pod per node, including the control plane, with a DaemonSet.
Two nodes · ~6 min · 5 points
- daemonset
- toleration
- control-plane
- workloads
goldenkube start cka-wkl-004
CKAWorkloads & SchedulingEasy
Required node affinity
Pin a Pod to nodes with a given label using required node affinity rather than a nodeSelector.
Two nodes · ~6 min · 5 points
- node-affinity
- scheduling
- labels
- workloads
goldenkube start cka-wkl-005
CKAWorkloads & SchedulingEasy
Guaranteed QoS Pod
Create a Pod whose resource settings place it in the Guaranteed QoS class.
Single node · ~4 min · 4 points
- qos
- resources
- requests
- limits
- workloads
goldenkube start cka-wkl-006
CKAWorkloads & SchedulingEasy
Job with completions and parallelism
Run a batch Job that must complete a fixed number of times with limited parallelism.
Single node · ~5 min · 4 points
- job
- batch
- completions
- parallelism
- workloads
goldenkube start cka-wkl-007
How a run works
- Install the CLI and Multipass, then run
goldenkube doctor. - Sign in with
goldenkube login(free account). - Start a scenario with its id; the CLI provisions a fresh cluster and prints the task.
- Solve it on the cluster, run
goldenkube submit; the result appears on your dashboard.
Grading happens on your machine and is practice feedback, not an official score. Tasks are public; hints, reference solutions and grader internals are not.
Frequently asked questions
Can I run these CKA labs today?
The scenarios are published and the CLI runs them end to end, but the first signed public build is not on the Homebrew tap yet, so the catalog is in preview. The task text of every scenario is public now; running one needs the CLI release.
Are the tasks the real CKA exam tasks?
No. They are GoldenKube scenarios written to cover the published CKA domains in the same style: a live cluster, a situation, a task. GoldenKube does not have or claim exam content.
How is a scenario graded?
On your machine. Each scenario has a fixed set of state checks; on submit the grader reads your live cluster and the scenario passes when every check passes. Hints, the reference solution and the check definitions stay inside the CLI.