CKA Services and Networking Practice Question
Which kubectl command correctly retrieves the list of EndpointSlices for a Service named 'my-svc' in the 'default' namespace?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse the legacy `endpoints` resource with `endpointslice`, or assume that `kubectl get endpointslice my-svc` works like `kubectl get pods my-pod`, not realizing that EndpointSlices are not named after the Service and require a label selector to filter.
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
✓
kubectl get endpointslice -n default --selector=kubernetes.io/service-name=my-svc
EndpointSlices are the modern, scalable replacement for Endpoints, and they use a specific label `kubernetes.io/service-name` to associate them with a Service. The command `kubectl get endpointslice -n default --selector=kubernetes.io/service-name=my-svc` correctly filters EndpointSlices by that label, retrieving all slices belonging to 'my-svc'.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
kubectl get endpoints my-svc -n default
Why it's wrong here
The command queries the legacy Endpoints API (v1), which is a distinct resource from EndpointSlice. Although Endpoints historically stored a Service's IP:port lists, they are deprecated and provide a single monolithic object per Service, not the sharded, label-selectable list of EndpointSlice resources you want.
- ✗
kubectl describe svc my-svc -n default
Why it's wrong here
Running kubectl describe on a Service displays only a human-readable summary, including an 'Endpoints' field derived from the underlying endpoint data, but it does not enumerate individual EndpointSlice objects or expose their topology, capacity, or conditions. It also cannot apply label selectors to filter slices. Therefore, this command does not correctly retrieve the list of EndpointSlices.
- ✓
kubectl get endpointslice -n default --selector=kubernetes.io/service-name=my-svc
Why this is correct
The label selector kubernetes.io/service-name=my-svc is the standard label automatically applied by the EndpointSlice controller to each slice that belongs to the Service. Since a Service can have multiple EndpointSlices (sharded by address type, subsets, or topology), this selector collects all of them, which is exactly what the task requires. The kubectl get endpointslice command then lists every matching EndpointSlice object in the default namespace.
- ✗
kubectl get endpointslices my-svc -n default
Why it's wrong here
Providing my-svc as a positional argument makes kubectl interpret it as an object name, so it attempts to return a single EndpointSlice literally named 'my-svc'. In practice, EndpointSlices receive auto-generated names with random suffixes, so this lookup will almost always fail with a NotFound error. The correct filter for Service membership is the --selector flag with the kubernetes.io/service-name label, not a resource name.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Kubernetes Architecture Overview
Key term
kubectl Command Reference
kubectl is the command-line tool used to interact with and manage Kubernetes clusters by sending commands to the Kubernetes API.
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.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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