CKAD Services and Networking Practice Question
An Ingress resource has the following spec. What is the effect?
spec: tls: - hosts: - myapp.example.com secretName: myapp-tls rules: - host: myapp.example.com http: paths: - path: / pathType: Prefix backend: service: name: myapp port: number: 80
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often assume TLS in an Ingress spec implies automatic HTTP-to-HTTPS redirect or TLS passthrough, but Kubernetes Ingress only terminates TLS by default unless explicitly configured otherwise.
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
✓
Ingress terminates TLS using the secret and routes to the service.
The Ingress spec defines TLS termination at the ingress controller using the secret `myapp-tls` for the host `myapp.example.com`. The `tls` block configures the ingress to decrypt HTTPS traffic using the certificate and key stored in that secret, and then forward the decrypted HTTP traffic to the backend service `myapp` on port 80. This is the standard behavior for securing traffic with TLS in Kubernetes Ingress.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Ingress terminates TLS using the secret and routes to the service.
Why this is correct
The Ingress controller uses the certificate and private key from the referenced secret to decrypt incoming HTTPS traffic at the edge. After TLS termination, the decrypted request is forwarded as plain HTTP to the backend service identified by the ingress routing rules. This is the conventional edge-termination model for Kubernetes Ingress.
- ✗
Ingress uses the secret for client authentication.
Why it's wrong here
Client authentication, often implemented as mutual TLS (mTLS), requires the server to request and validate a client certificate against a trusted CA. The secret in the ingress tls block only provides the server certificate to present to clients; it does not configure any client-certificate validation. Enabling mTLS would require additional ingress annotations, a CA bundle, and a controller that supports client-certificate verification.
- ✗
Ingress redirects HTTP to HTTPS automatically.
Why it's wrong here
Automatic HTTP-to-HTTPS redirection is an optional and controller-specific feature. Merely specifying a tls block with a secret in the Ingress spec does not make the controller redirect plain HTTP requests; you must explicitly enable it, for example with the nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/force-ssl-redirect annotation on NGINX Ingress. Without such a configuration, the Ingress serves both HTTP and HTTPS on the same routing rules, and clients that hit the HTTP endpoint are not redirected.
- ✗
Ingress passes the TLS connection through to the service.
Why it's wrong here
TLS passthrough would forward the original encrypted stream unchanged to the backend pod, letting the pod perform its own decryption; the Ingress controller would never see the plaintext. Standard Ingress does not support passthrough—it is only achievable via controller-specific features like the NGINX svc annotation or Gateway API TLS routes. The presence of a tls secret in an Ingress spec indicates the controller itself terminates TLS, which is the opposite of passthrough.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CKAD 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 CKAD exam.