The CKS is definitely the hardest of the three Kubernetes certifications from the LinuxFoundation (the other two being the CKA and the CKAD). The time runs much faster because the questions are harder and the scope is broader. I finished both the CKA and CKAD before the time, but I couldn’t finish the CKS (I still passed the exam, but that was a bit more borderline). Here are some notes to help pass it:

  • For some questions, you can spend some time verifying that you got it right. For example, if setting up a network policy, you can create some pods and check that the communication between the pods is as expected. That will be a lot of time spent on those verifications rather then answering other questions. My advice is to learn network policies inside out and don’t verify your answers. Ditto for CIS benchmarks: Just perform the task and move on, don’t verify it. You can mark those questions and come back to verify them at the end of the exam if you have time.
  • Before the exam, spend some time playing with Falco and getting an understanding of all the variables you can play with for conditions and outputs.
  • Before the exam, do a lab on your own setting up an ImagePolicyWebhook with a trivy scanner. You can use this project for the scanner, which has an image available here.
  • For a number of topics, such as PodSecurityPolicies and AppArmor, some explanations or even manifest snippets can be found in the official Kubernetes documentation. Learn how to find back the relevant pages or bookmark them for the exam.