CKA Services and Networking Practice Question
Which of the following commands can be used to check the endpoints of a service named 'my-service'?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse the `kubectl describe svc` command (which shows endpoints in its output) with a non-existent `--show-endpoints` flag, or assume that the service YAML contains the resolved endpoint IPs.
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 endpoints my-service
The `kubectl get endpoints my-service` command directly retrieves the Endpoints object associated with the service, which lists the IP addresses and ports of the pods that match the service's selector. This is the standard and most direct way to check the active endpoints for a service in Kubernetes.
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-service
Why this is correct
This command queries the Endpoints API object that Kubernetes maintains for a Service. The endpoints controller watches the Service's pod selector and updates this object with the current IPs and ports of ready backing pods, so `kubectl get endpoints my-service` directly lists the live backend addresses that the Service routes to.
- ✗
kubectl get pod my-service
Why it's wrong here
This command treats `my-service` as a Pod name, but a Service and a Pod are distinct resource types in different API groups (v1 Service vs. v1 Pod). Unless a Pod literally labeled with that name exists, kubectl returns a NotFound error, and even if it existed it would show one Pod's details rather than the aggregated set of backend endpoints for the Service.
- ✗
kubectl get service my-service -o yaml
Why it's wrong here
Fetching the Service with `-o yaml` returns the Service object's full manifest, including spec (selector, ports) and status, but Service status does not contain the resolved backend IPs. The backend list is stored in a separate Endpoints resource, so YAML output of the Service alone will not show the actual pod IP:port pairs that the Service routes to.
- ✗
kubectl get svc my-service --show-endpoints
Why it's wrong here
The `--show-endpoints` flag does not exist for `kubectl get svc`; it is not a valid kubectl global or resource-level flag. The `svc` shorthand only supports standard get options such as `-o`, `-n`, or `--label-columns`. To inspect the endpoints, you must explicitly query a separate resource: `kubectl get endpoints my-service`.
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
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.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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