Be able to create SCCs, bind them to ServiceAccounts with oc adm policy, configure OAuth identity providers, and secure Routes with custom TLS certificates. The critical thing is attaching SCCs and pull secrets to the correct ServiceAccount, not to users or Deployments directly.
Start practicing
Security And SCC — choose a session length
Free · No account required
Domain overview
This domain covers OpenShift security primitives: SCCs, service accounts, RBAC, identity providers, secrets, and TLS-secured Routes. On EX280 you perform hands-on tasks with oc and YAML manifests, such as creating SCCs, binding roles, configuring htpasswd or OIDC identity providers, and applying certificates to Routes.
Exam objectives
Creating and applying custom SCCs, then binding them to ServiceAccounts via oc adm policy add-scc-to-user
Configuring identity providers such as htpasswd or OIDC in the OAuth custom resource
Securing Routes with edge, passthrough, or reencrypt TLS termination and custom certificates
Managing Secrets for image pull credentials and referencing them in ServiceAccounts or Pod specs
Binding a custom SCC directly to a user instead of to the ServiceAccount the pod actually runs as
Placing TLS certificate and key in the wrong Route field, such as spec.tls instead of the correct termination stanza
Forgetting that OIDC requires issuer URL, client ID, and client secret, and omitting the required claims or secret reference
Click any question to see the full explanation and answer options, or start a focused practice session above.
An administrator wants to pull container images from a private container registry that requires authentication for a specific deployment. Where must the image pull secret be referenced so that the deployment pods can successfully pull the image?
2An administrator needs to secure a Route with edge termination using a custom TLS certificate and private key. Which section of the Route manifest must contain these certificate details?
3An administrator needs to configure an authentication mechanism where users logging into the OpenShift web console are authenticated via an external corporate directory using LDAP. Which resource object should the administrator configure?
4When configuring an OAuth identity provider of type HTPasswd, which object type must be created to store the username and hashed password pairs?
5An administrator needs to configure re-encrypt TLS termination on a Route. In addition to the router certificate, what other certificate component must typically be provided in the route configuration?
6An application deployed in a secured namespace requires access to the Kubernetes API to query pod statuses. The administrator wants to follow the principle of least privilege. How should the administrator configure the ServiceAccount and RBAC?
7An administrator needs to view the current list of active Security Context Constraints installed in an OpenShift cluster. Which command should be executed?
8An administrator is securing routes in an OpenShift cluster. Which THREE TLS termination types are supported natively by OpenShift Routes? (Choose THREE)
9An administrator needs to troubleshoot an image pull failure caused by missing credentials. Which TWO locations or methods can be used to associate an image pull secret with a workload in OpenShift? (Choose TWO)
10An administrator is configuring authentication in OpenShift. Which TWO of the following identity provider types are natively supported by the OpenShift OAuth server? (Choose TWO)
11An administrator is reviewing the default Security Context Constraints in OpenShift 4.14+. Which THREE of the following SCCs are built-in and provided out-of-the-box by OpenShift? (Choose THREE)
12An administrator is auditing Security Context Constraints and wants to identify which settings can be controlled within a custom SCC definition. Which THREE fields are valid configuration options inside an SCC resource? (Choose THREE)
13An administrator needs to restrict pod creation based on Pod Security Standards namespaces. Which TWO of the following are valid Pod Security Standard levels defined by Kubernetes and supported in OpenShift? (Choose TWO)
14An administrator is managing service accounts and wants to understand how tokens work in OpenShift 4.14+. Which TWO statements are correct regarding ServiceAccount tokens in this version? (Choose TWO)
15An administrator is troubleshooting an OAuth authentication failure where users receive an error indicating invalid credentials against an HTPasswd provider. Which TWO steps or checks are critical for resolving this issue? (Choose TWO)
16A cluster administrator needs to grant a Deployment in the production namespace permission to pull images from a private container registry. The image pull secret is named my-registry-secret. Which step must be performed so that pods created by this Deployment can successfully pull the image?
17An administrator creates a new custom Security Context Constraint (SCC) named restrict-root. After creating the SCC resource, users complain that pods using a ServiceAccount tied to this SCC are still falling back to the restricted-v2 SCC. What is the most likely cause?
18A developer deploys an application using a Route that terminates TLS using the Edge termination strategy. The developer wants to ensure that all insecure HTTP traffic to the route is automatically redirected to HTTPS. Where must this setting be configured?
19A cluster administrator wishes to enforce the restricted Pod Security Standard across an entire namespace named auditing-ns. Which label should the administrator apply to the namespace to enforce this policy while generating audit warnings for non-compliant pods?
20Which TWO methods can an administrator use to inspect or troubleshoot Security Context Constraint (SCC) assignments for a specific ServiceAccount in a namespace?
21Which TWO actions are required when configuring an external OpenID Connect (OIDC) identity provider in OpenShift Container Platform?
22You are integrating an external LDAP identity provider. Which secret must be created to store the bind password for the LDAP server?
23You need to allow a specific service account to run pods as root. Which command should you use to associate the 'privileged' SCC with the 'default' service account in the 'web-apps' namespace?
24How do you view the currently active OAuth identity providers in an OpenShift cluster?
25Which tool should be used to troubleshoot why an SCC is being rejected for a pod?
26You need to terminate TLS for a route using a custom certificate. Which object must contain the TLS key and certificate?
27Which SCC is assigned by default to authenticated users who are not service accounts?
28A developer needs to expose a service via a route with re-encryption. What is required in the Route configuration?
29When using OIDC for authentication, what does the 'issuer' field in the configuration represent?
30Where do you define the default image pull secrets for all service accounts in a namespace?
31Which service account is used by default for pods that do not specify a service account in their manifest?
32When creating a custom SCC, what is the best practice for assigning it to users?
33What happens if a pod does not match any SCC?
34You are configuring an OAuth identity provider using 'htpasswd'. Which secret must contain the file?
35Which TWO of the following are valid ways to secure a route?
36How can you view the list of all SCCs available in the cluster?
37Which THREE of the following are required when configuring an OIDC identity provider?
38Which THREE parameters are commonly found in the SCC 'spec' section?
39Which TWO authentication methods are supported by the OpenShift OAuth server?
40Which THREE components are involved in TLS termination for routes?
41Which TWO security standards are natively tracked in OpenShift?
42Which TWO things must be configured to use a Private Image Registry?
43An administrator is preparing a custom Security Context Constraint (SCC) that will be granted to a specific ServiceAccount used by a log-forwarding DaemonSet. The DaemonSet pods must be able to mount a hostPath volume at /var/log but must not run as UID 0 and must not use the host network. Which SCC field combination must the administrator set to allow only the hostPath mount while still blocking privileged escalation and host networking?
44An administrator is preparing a custom SecurityContextConstraints (SCC) named app-scc to allow pods to run with a specific user ID and to use the host network. Which two fields must be set in the SCC to achieve these requirements? (Choose two.)
45A cluster administrator wants to prevent any pod in the `finance` namespace from requesting the `NET_RAW` capability, which is not needed by the applications there. The administrator plans to modify the SCC bound to the namespace's default ServiceAccount. Which SCC field should be used to explicitly drop `NET_RAW`?
46A security team wants to ensure that all pods in a new namespace called secure-apps run with a specific SELinux context level. They create a custom SCC named selinux-scc with seLinuxContext: MustRunAs and a specific level. After binding the SCC to the default service account in secure-apps, pods still fail to start with an SELinux relabeling error. What is the most likely cause?
47An administrator is reviewing why a pod in the `legacy` namespace runs as UID 1000070000 even though the pod manifest does not specify a `runAsUser`. The namespace annotation `openshift.io/sa.scc.uid-range` is `1000070000/10000`. Which SCC behavior explains the observed UID?
48A security team requires that a specific ServiceAccount `app-sa` in project `prod` be allowed to run pods that use the `hostNetwork` namespace, while all other ServiceAccounts in `prod` must remain restricted. The administrator creates a new SCC `hostnet-scc` with `allowHostNetwork: true` and binds it only to `app-sa`. A developer then creates a pod using the `default` ServiceAccount with `hostNetwork: true` in its manifest. What is the result?
Be able to create SCCs, bind them to ServiceAccounts with oc adm policy, configure OAuth identity providers, and secure Routes with custom TLS certificates. The critical thing is attaching SCCs and pull secrets to the correct ServiceAccount, not to users or Deployments directly.
The Courseiva EX280 question bank contains 48 questions in the Security And SCC domain. Click any question to see the full explanation and answer breakdown.
Start with a 10-question focused session to identify your baseline accuracy in this domain. Read every explanation — even for questions you answer correctly — to understand the reasoning. Once you score consistently above 80%, move to a 20–30 question session to confirm depth before moving to the next domain.
Yes — the session launcher on this page draws questions exclusively from the Security And SCC domain. Choose 10, 20, 30, or 50 questions for a focused session, or click individual questions to review them one by one.
Save your results, see per-domain analytics, and get readiness scores — free, for every certification.
Sign Up FreeFree forever · Every certification included