CKA Storage Practice Test 2 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A DevOps team needs to deploy a stateful application that requires persistent storage with ReadWriteMany access mode across multiple pods running on different nodes. Which Kubernetes resource should they use to provision the storage?

Accepted Answer

A PersistentVolume with access mode ReadWriteMany. ReadWriteMany (RWX) is the only access mode that allows multiple pods across different nodes to simultaneously read and write to the same persistent storage volume. A PersistentVolume with access mode ReadWriteMany meets the requirement for a stateful application needing concurrent access from pods running on different nodes, typically backed by network filesystems like NFS, GlusterFS, or CephFS.

Answer

A hostPath volume

Answer

A PersistentVolume with access mode ReadWriteOnce

Answer

An emptyDir volume

Question 2

A pod is configured to use a PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC). The PVC is bound to a PersistentVolume (PV) that uses a cloud disk. The pod fails to start with the error 'MountVolume.SetUp failed for volume ... mount failed: exit status 32'. What is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The underlying storage device is still attached to a previous node. The error 'MountVolume.SetUp failed for volume ... mount failed: exit status 32' typically indicates a filesystem-level mount failure. When a cloud disk (e.g., AWS EBS, GCE PD) is still attached to a previous node, the new node cannot mount it because the disk is already in use or has a stale filesystem lock. Kubernetes requires the disk to be detached from the old node before it can be attached and mounted on the new node.

Answer

The PV's access mode is ReadOnlyMany

Answer

The PV is not created

Answer

The PVC is unbound

Question 3

A team wants to ensure that a pod using a PersistentVolumeClaim (PVC) is scheduled only on nodes that have the underlying storage volume available locally. Which approach should they use?

Accepted Answer

Add a nodeSelector to the pod spec that matches a label present on nodes with local storage. Option A is correct because a nodeSelector on the Pod spec ensures the Pod is scheduled only on nodes that have a specific label, which can be applied to nodes with local storage volumes. This directly ties Pod placement to nodes that physically host the storage, avoiding scheduling on nodes without the local volume.

Answer

Use a StorageClass with volumeBindingMode: Immediate

Answer

Use a podAffinity rule to schedule the pod near the storage node

Answer

Use a PersistentVolume with nodeAffinity in the PV spec

Question 4

Which TWO statements about PersistentVolume (PV) reclaim policies are correct?

Accepted Answer

Delete policy: both the PV and the underlying storage are deleted.. Option A is correct because the Delete reclaim policy removes both the PersistentVolume object from the cluster and the associated underlying storage asset (e.g., an EBS volume or GCE PD). This is the default behavior for dynamically provisioned PVs, ensuring no orphaned storage resources remain after the PV is released.

Answer

Recycle policy: the PV is deleted and data is scrubbed.

Answer

Delete policy: the PV remains but the underlying storage is deleted.

Answer

Retain policy: the PV is automatically deleted after 30 days.

Question 5

Refer to the exhibit. A pod is defined with an emptyDir volume using memory medium. The pod is scheduled on a node with 4 GB of RAM. The container writes 3 GB of data to /cache. What will happen?

Accepted Answer

The pod will run normally because there is no memory limit and the node has sufficient RAM.. Option D is correct because an emptyDir volume with `medium: Memory` creates a tmpfs filesystem that uses the node's RAM, but it does not impose any inherent limit on how much memory the container can consume via that volume. Since the pod has no memory limit set (no `resources.limits.memory`), the container can write up to the node's available memory (4 GB) without being throttled or killed, as long as the node has sufficient free RAM.

Answer

The container will be throttled by the kernel's memory management.

Answer

The pod will be evicted because emptyDir with memory is not allowed to use more than 1 GB.

Answer

The pod will be OOMKilled because the emptyDir memory usage exceeds the default limit.

Question 6

You are a cluster administrator managing a production Kubernetes cluster that hosts a stateful application using StatefulSets with PersistentVolumeClaims (PVCs) backed by a cloud provider's persistent disk. A developer reports that a new pod in the StatefulSet is stuck in 'Pending' state. You describe the StatefulSet and see that it has 3 replicas. Two pods are Running, but the third pod (pod-2) is Pending. You check the PVC for pod-2 and see it is 'Pending'. The StorageClass uses 'WaitForFirstConsumer' volume binding mode. The node where pod-2 should run has sufficient resources. Other PVCs in the same namespace bound successfully. What is the most likely cause of the pending PVC and pod?

Accepted Answer

The PV that should bind to the PVC has a nodeAffinity that does not match any available node.. The correct answer is A because with 'WaitForFirstConsumer' volume binding mode, the PVC binding is deferred until a pod using it is scheduled. The PV that should bind to the PVC has a nodeAffinity that does not match any available node, preventing the scheduler from binding the PVC and scheduling the pod. This results in both the PVC and pod remaining in 'Pending' state, even though the node has sufficient resources.

Answer

The CSI driver is not installed on the node where pod-2 is scheduled.

Answer

The PVC's requested storage size exceeds the available capacity in the cloud provider's quota.

Answer

The PVC's access mode is ReadWriteOnce, but the pod requires ReadWriteMany.

Question 7

A DevOps team is deploying a stateful application that requires persistent storage with ReadWriteMany access mode across multiple pods running on different nodes in a Kubernetes cluster. Which storage solution should they choose to meet this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Configure a PersistentVolume backed by NFS and a PersistentVolumeClaim with accessModes: ReadWriteMany. NFS supports ReadWriteMany (RWX) access mode, allowing multiple pods across different nodes to read and write to the same persistent storage simultaneously. A PersistentVolume backed by NFS, combined with a PersistentVolumeClaim specifying accessModes: ReadWriteMany, meets the requirement for a stateful application needing shared storage across nodes.

Answer

Use an emptyDir volume and share it among pods via a service

Answer

Create a local PersistentVolume on each node and use nodeSelector to pin pods

Answer

Use a hostPath volume mounted in each pod with the same path on each node

Question 8

Which TWO statements about Kubernetes PersistentVolumes and PersistentVolumeClaims are correct?

Accepted Answer

A PVC will bind to a PV that satisfies its requested storage size and access modes.. A PVC binds to a PV that satisfies its requested storage size and access modes (e.g., ReadWriteOnce, ReadOnlyMany, ReadWriteMany). The binding process matches a PVC to a PV that meets or exceeds the PVC's requirements, and once bound, the PVC consumes the PV's capacity. This is the core mechanism for dynamic or static storage provisioning in Kubernetes.

Answer

A PersistentVolume can only be created by a cluster administrator using static provisioning.

Answer

A PVC is a cluster-scoped resource, similar to a PV.

Answer

A PVC can be deleted while bound to a PV without affecting the PV.

Question 9

A developer accidentally runs 'kubectl delete pvc data-claim'. What is the immediate effect on the PersistentVolume pv-data?

Accepted Answer

The PV pv-data enters the Released state and is not deleted.. When a PVC is deleted, the associated PV enters the 'Released' state, not 'Available'. This is because the PV still contains data from the previous claim (the retain policy is 'Retain' by default), and Kubernetes does not automatically delete or reuse it. The PV remains in 'Released' until an administrator manually clears the claimRef or deletes the PV.

Answer

The PV pv-data is automatically deleted.

Answer

The PV pv-data remains Bound to the deleted PVC.

Answer

The PV pv-data immediately becomes Available and can be reused.

Question 10

An application requires a persistent volume that can be shared across multiple Pods running on different nodes, with read-write access from all Pods simultaneously. Which access mode should be specified in the PersistentVolumeClaim?

Accepted Answer

ReadWriteMany. The correct access mode is ReadWriteMany (RWX), which allows the volume to be mounted as read-write by multiple Pods across different nodes simultaneously. This matches the requirement for shared concurrent read-write access from all Pods.

Answer

ReadWriteOncePod

Answer

ReadOnlyMany

Answer

ReadWriteOnce

Question 11

Which THREE of the following are valid ways to provide storage to Pods in Kubernetes?

Accepted Answer

Using an emptyDir volume. B is correct because an emptyDir volume is a simple, ephemeral storage option that is created when a Pod is assigned to a node and exists as long as that Pod is running. It is initially empty and allows containers within the same Pod to share data, making it a valid and commonly used volume type for temporary storage.

Answer

Using a ConfigMap volume

Answer

Using a Secret volume

Question 12

Drag and drop the steps to configure a NetworkPolicy that allows ingress traffic from a specific pod into the correct order.

Question 13

Drag and drop the steps to perform a rolling update of a Deployment using kubectl into the correct order.

Question 14

Match each etcd operation to its description.

Question 15

Match each cluster upgrade step to its purpose.