Interview Guide

KUBERNETES

Interview Guide
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Ace Your Kubernetes
Interview
Kubernetes comes from a Greek Kubernetes is maintained by Cloud
word meaning ‘captain,’ ‘helmsman,’ Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)
or ‘governor.’ The term is now also and has evolved into a fast-growing
used in the DevOps and on-premises and widely used ecosystem.
software development world to refer
Our Kubernetes Interview guide will
to a powerful bundle of solutions
help you with 30+ frequently asked
that equips operations engineers to
Kubernetes interview questions and
scale and service server (and box)
answers that will help you prepare for
setups effortlessly. Kubernetes was
any interview or certification exam
created by Joe Beda, Craig McLuckie,
that you may need to take once you’ve
and Brendan Burns, who were later
completed the Kubernetes training.
joined by Google engineers before
officially releasing it in 2014. Today,

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Q: What is Kubernetes? allows for portability and several

other advantages. Kubernetes
A: Kubernetes is an open-source allows for the manual linking and
container orchestration tool or orchestration of several containers,
system that is used to automate running on multiple hosts that have
tasks such as the management, been created using Docker.
monitoring, scaling, and
deployment of containerized
applications. It is used to easily Q. What are the main differences
manage several containers between the Docker Swarm
(since it can handle grouping and Kubernetes?
of containers), which provides
for logical units that can be A: Docker Swarm is Docker’s
discovered and managed. native, open-source container
orchestration platform that is used
to cluster and schedule Docker
Q. What are K8s? containers. Swarm differs from
Kubernetes in the following ways:
A: K8s is another term for
Kubernetes. Docker Swarm is more convenient
to set up but doesn’t have a robust
cluster, while Kubernetes is more
Q. What is orchestration when it complicated to set up but the
comes to software and benefit of having the assurance of
DevOps? a robust cluster
Docker Swarm can’t do auto-
A: Orchestration refers to the scaling (as can Kubernetes);
integration of multiple services however, Docker scaling is five
that allows them to automate times faster than Kubernetes
processes or synchronize
information in a timely fashion. Docker Swarm doesn’t have a GUI;
Say, for example, you have six Kubernetes has a GUI in the form
or seven microservices for an of a dashboard
application to run. If you place Docker Swarm does automatic
them in separate containers, this load balancing of traffic between
would inevitably create obstacles containers in a cluster, while
for communication. Orchestration Kubernetes requires manual
would help in such a situation by intervention for load balancing
enabling all services in individual such traffic
containers to work seamlessly to
accomplish a single goal. Docker requires third-party tools
like ELK stack for logging and
monitoring, while Kubernetes has
Q. How are Kubernetes and integrated tools for the same
Docker related? Docker Swarm can share storage
volumes with any container easily,
A: Docker is an open-source while Kubernetes can only share
platform used to handle software storage volumes with containers in
development. Its main benefit the same pod
is that it packages the settings
and dependencies that the Docker can deploy rolling updates
software/application needs but can’t deploy automatic
to run into a container, which rollbacks; Kubernetes can

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deploy rolling updates as well as share a local network and the

automatic rollbacks same resources, allowing them
to easily communicate with other
containers in the same pod as if
Q. What are the main components they were on the same machine
of Kubernetes architecture? while at the same time maintaining
a degree of isolation.
A: There are two primary
components: the master node
and the worker node. Each of Q. What is the job of the kube-
these components has individual scheduler?
components in them.
A: The kube-scheduler assigns nodes
to newly created pods.
Q. What is a node in Kubernetes?

A: A node is the smallest fundamental Q. What is a cluster of containers

unit of computing hardware. It in Kubernetes?
represents a single machine in a
cluster, which could be a physical A: A cluster of containers is a set of
machine in a data center or a machine elements that are nodes.
virtual machine from a cloud Clusters initiate specific routes so
provider. Each machine can that the containers running on the
substitute any other machine in a nodes can communicate with each
Kubernetes cluster. The master in other. In Kubernetes, the container
Kubernetes controls the nodes that engine (not the server of the
have containers. Kubernetes API) provides hosting
for the API server.

Q. What does the node status

contain? Q. What is the Google Container
Engine?
A: The main components of a node
status are Address, Condition, A: The Google Container Engine
Capacity, and Info. is an open-source management
platform tailor-made for Docker
containers and clusters to provide
Q. What process runs on support for the clusters that run in
Kubernetes Master Node? Google public cloud services.

A: The Kube-api server process runs

on the master node and serves Q. What are Daemon sets?
to scale the deployment of more
instances. A: A Daemon set is a set of pods that
runs only once on a host. They
are used for host layer attributes
Q. What is a pod in Kubernetes? like a network or for monitoring a
network, which you may not need
A: Pods are high-level structures to run on a host more than once.
that wrap one or more containers.
This is because containers are
not run directly in Kubernetes. Q. What is ‘Heapster’ in
Containers in the same pod Kubernetes?

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A: A Heapster is a performance service accounts controller,

monitoring and metrics collection namespace controller, node
system for data collected by the controller, token controller, and
Kublet. This aggregator is natively replication controller.
supported and runs like any other
pod within a Kubernetes cluster,
which allows it to discover and Q. What is etcd?
query usage data from all nodes
within the cluster. A: Kubernetes uses ectd as a
distributed key-value store for all
of its data, including metadata
Q. What is a Namespace in and configuration data and allows
Kubernetes? nodes in Kubernetes clusters to
read and write data. Although
A: Namespaces are used for dividing etcd was purposely built for
cluster resources between CoreOS, it also works on a variety
multiple users. They are meant of operating systems (e.g., Linux,
for environments where there are BSB, and OS X) because it is open-
many users spread across projects source. Etcd represents the state
or teams and provide a scope of of a cluster at a specific moment
resources. in time and is a canonical hub for
state management and cluster
coordination of a Kubernetes
Q. Name the initial namespaces cluster.
from which Kubernetes starts?

Q. What are the different services

Default within Kubernetes?
Kube – system A: Different types of Kubernetes
Kube – public services include:
Cluster IP service

Q. What is the Kubernetes Node Port service

controller manager? External Name Creation service
and
A: The controller manager is
a daemon that is used for Load Balancer service
embedding core control
loops, garbage collection, and
Namespace creation. It enables the Q. What is ClusterIP?
running of multiple processes on
the master node even though they A: The ClusterIP is the default
are compiled to run as a single Kubernetes service that provides
process. a service inside a cluster (with no
external access) that other apps
inside your cluster can access.
Q. What are the types of
controller managers?
Q. What is NodePort?
A: The primary controller managers
that can run on the master node A: The NodePort service is the most
are the endpoints controller, fundamental way to get external

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traffic directly to your service. It manage commands on the

opens a specific port on all Nodes Kubernetes component.
and forwards any traffic sent to
this port to the service.
Q. Give examples of
recommended security
Q. What is the LoadBalancer in measures for Kubernetes.
Kubernetes?
A: Examples of standard Kubernetes
A: The LoadBalancer service is security measures include
used to expose services to the defining resource quotas,
internet. A Network load balancer, support for auditing, restriction
for example, creates a single IP of etcd access, regular security
address that forwards all traffic to updates to the environment,
your service. network segmentation, definition
of strict resource policies,
continuous scanning for security
Q. What is a headless service? vulnerabilities, and using images
from authorized repositories.
A: A headless service is used to
interface with service discovery
mechanisms without being tied Q. What is Kube-proxy?
to a ClusterIP, therefore allowing
you to directly reach pods without A: Kube-proxy is an implementation
having to access them through of a load balancer and network
a proxy. It is useful when neither proxy used to support service
load balancing nor a single Service abstraction with other networking
IP is required. operations. Kube-proxy is
responsible for directing traffic
to the right container based on IP
Q. What is a kubelet? and the port number of incoming
requests.
A: The kubelet is a service agent
that controls and maintains a
set of pods by watching for pod Q. How can you get a static IP for
specs through the Kubernetes a Kubernetes load balancer?
API server. It preserves the pod
lifecycle by ensuring that a given A: A static IP for the Kubernetes
set of containers are all running load balancer can be achieved by
as they should. The kubelet runs changing DNS records since the
on each node and enables the Kubernetes Master can assign a
communication between the new static IP address.
master and slave nodes.

Q. What is Kubectl?

A: Kubectl is a CLI (command-line

interface) that is used to run
commands against Kubernetes
clusters. As such, it controls the
Kubernetes cluster manager
through different create and

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JUMPSTART YOUR CAREER WITH

KUBERNETES TRAINING
Having a good understanding of DevOps and on-premises software
development can be quite useful in helping you gain a holistic view of the
subject matter. Ultimately, taking the Certified Kubernetes Administrator
Course and taking your time to study and understand what you’ve learned
while preferably putting it into practice is the best way to prepare for an
interview. The questions here are the icing on the cake because they will
allow you to get a feel of the type of questions that you can be asked. The
more familiar you are with these types of questions, the better able you will
be to show off your skills.

Certifications and Training provided by us:

• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) Certification Training Course

• DevOps Certification Training Course
• DevOps Engineer Master’s Program

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 Interview Guide

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