KCNA Cheat Sheet 2026

The 30 highest-yield KCNA facts, distilled from real exam questions. Print it, save it as a PDF, or study it here — free, no sign-up.

1. What documentation is MOST critical to maintain for safety compliance in the Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate field? → Incident reports, training records, and inspection logs
2. A Pod is stuck in `Pending` state. What is the most likely cause? → No node satisfies the Pod's scheduling requirements
3. What happens to a Pod's IP address when the Pod is deleted and recreated by a ReplicaSet? → A new IP address is assigned from the cluster's Pod CIDR
4. In a cloud-native architecture, which pattern best describes using object storage (like S3) instead of block storage for application data? → Externalizing state to a managed object store accessed via SDK or API
5. Which open-source service mesh uses a per-node proxy model instead of per-pod sidecars? → Cilium Service Mesh
6. Which `kubectl` command scales a Deployment named `web` to 10 replicas immediately? → kubectl scale deployment web --replicas=10
7. In KCNA practice, what is the best approach to quality improvement in service mesh? → Use data-driven methods with measurable outcomes
8. A DaemonSet pod is running on every node. What happens when a new node joins the cluster? → The DaemonSet controller automatically schedules a pod on the new node
9. Which KEDA concept defines the external event source that triggers pod scaling? → Scaler
10. In Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate practice, what is the FIRST step when a safety hazard is identified in the workplace? → Immediately secure the area and report the hazard
11. Which Kubernetes resource guarantees that a minimum number of Pods in a Deployment remain available during voluntary disruptions? → PodDisruptionBudget
12. Which service mesh feature prevents cascading failures by stopping requests to an unhealthy service after a threshold of failures? → Circuit breaker
13. Which pod scheduling feature ensures that two pods of the same application never land on the same node? → Pod anti-affinity with requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution
14. When conducting a risk assessment for KCNA operations, which factor should receive the HIGHEST priority? → Probability and severity of potential harm
15. What does the Node Controller in kube-controller-manager do when a node becomes unreachable? → Marks the node as NotReady and eventually evicts Pods after a timeout
16. What is the cluster CIDR used for in Kubernetes networking? → Assigning IP addresses to pods across the cluster
17. A pod using an 'emptyDir' volume is deleted. What happens to the data stored in that volume? → Data is deleted when the pod is removed
18. What is the PRIMARY purpose of obtaining KCNA certification in Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate? → To demonstrate verified competency and adherence to professional standards
19. Which professional attribute is most valued in scheduling and scaling within the KCNA field? → Accountability and commitment to standards
20. Which cloud native pattern helps external clients communicate with services that use incompatible internal protocols? → Adapter
21. What is the 'app of apps' pattern in ArgoCD? → A pattern where one ArgoCD Application manages other ArgoCD Application resources
22. Which access mode allows a PersistentVolume to be mounted as read-write by many nodes simultaneously? → ReadWriteMany (RWX)
23. What is the role of the kube-scheduler in Kubernetes? → Assigns newly created Pods to nodes
24. What is the Container Runtime Interface (CRI) in Kubernetes? → A plugin API that allows kubelet to use different container runtimes without recompilation
25. In Prometheus, what type of metric would you use to track the total number of HTTP requests served since startup? → Counter
26. What is the OpenGitOps project? → A CNCF project that defines vendor-neutral GitOps principles and a shared specification
27. What is the default behavior for a Pod that does not specify a ServiceAccount? → The 'default' ServiceAccount in its namespace is used
28. Which component is used to manage persistent storage in Kubernetes? → Persistent Volume Claim
29. What is the most important professional competency for KCNA certification in monitoring and logging? → Deep knowledge combined with practical application skills
30. Which command shows the resource requests and limits currently set on all containers in a running pod? → Both A and C show this information