CKA Practice Question: Cluster Architecture, Installation and Configuration
Which component is responsible for maintaining network rules on each node?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse kubelet with kube-proxy, as both run on each node, but kubelet manages Pod lifecycle while kube-proxy manages network rules and service routing.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
kube-proxy
C is correct because kube-proxy is the component responsible for maintaining network rules on each node. It watches the Kubernetes API server for changes to Services and EndpointSlices, then updates iptables, IPVS, or other rules to route traffic to the appropriate Pods. This ensures that network policies and service load balancing are enforced at the node level.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
kube-controller-manager
Why it's wrong here
The kube-controller-manager is a control plane component that runs various controller processes to regulate the state of the cluster, such as the node, replication, and endpoint controllers. It watches the shared state of the cluster through the apiserver and makes changes attempting to move the current state towards the desired state. It does not interact with host-level networking utilities or manage per-node packet routing rules.
- ✗
etcd
Why it's wrong here
etcd serves as the highly-available, consistent, and distributed key-value store for all Kubernetes cluster data, acting as the single source of truth. While it stores configuration data related to Services and Endpoints, it is entirely passive and does not actively configure or maintain network rules on individual cluster nodes.
- ✓
kube-proxy
Why this is correct
kube-proxy is a network daemon that runs on each node to implement the Kubernetes Service abstraction. It monitors the API server for changes to Service and EndpointSlice objects, translating those definitions into active network rules using backend technologies like iptables or IPVS. This mechanism ensures that traffic directed to a Service's virtual IP is correctly load-balanced and routed to the appropriate backend pods.
- ✗
kubelet
Why it's wrong here
The kubelet is the primary node agent that ensures containers described in PodSpecs are running and healthy on its host. While it interacts with Container Network Interface (CNI) plugins to set up the network namespace and assign IP addresses to individual pods, it does not manage the cluster-wide Service routing or maintain the host's iptables/IPVS rules.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Network Policies and Secure Connectivity
Key term
Ingress Resources
Ingress Resources are Kubernetes API objects that manage external access to services inside a cluster, typically HTTP and HTTPS traffic, by defining rules for routing requests based on hostnames and paths.
Key term
Network Policies
A Kubernetes resource that controls how pods communicate with each other and with other network endpoints, acting as a firewall for pod-to-pod traffic.
About these practice questions
This CKA question is part of Courseiva's 726-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CKA practice question is part of Courseiva's free CNCF certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CKA exam.