CKA Cluster Maintenance 2

Question 1

Which command safely evicts all pods from a node before maintenance without permanently removing it from the cluster?

Accepted Answer

kubectl drain <node> --ignore-daemonsets

Answer

kubectl drain evicts pods gracefully and cordons the node; --ignore-daemonsets skips DaemonSet-managed pods which cannot be evicted.

Question 2

After completing node maintenance, which command makes the node schedulable again?

Accepted Answer

kubectl uncordon <node>

Answer

kubectl uncordon removes the unschedulable taint set by cordon or drain, allowing pods to be scheduled on the node again.

Question 3

A node has a pod with no replication controller. What happens when you run kubectl drain on that node?

Accepted Answer

The drain fails unless --force flag is used

Answer

kubectl drain refuses to delete pods not managed by a ReplicaSet, Deployment, or Job unless --force is specified, as they cannot be rescheduled.

Question 4

What is the default eviction timeout when draining a node in Kubernetes?

Accepted Answer

infinite (waits forever)

Answer

By default, kubectl drain waits indefinitely for pods to terminate; use --timeout to set a deadline.

Question 5

Which etcd operation should be performed before upgrading the Kubernetes control plane?

Accepted Answer

etcd snapshot backup

Answer

Taking an etcd snapshot backup before upgrades ensures you can restore cluster state if the upgrade fails.

(CKA) Certified Kubernetes Administrator Practice Test