CKAD Application Deployment Practice Question
Which kubectl command is used to view the rollout status of a Deployment named 'web-app'?
⚠ Common exam trap
It's easy for candidates to confuse `rollout history` (which shows past revisions) with `rollout status` (which shows current rollout progress), or they assume a generic `status` subcommand exists when it does not.
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 rollout status deployment web-app
`kubectl rollout status deployment web-app` is the dedicated command to monitor the progress of a rollout for a Deployment named 'web-app'. It blocks until the rollout completes successfully or reports a failure, providing real-time status updates such as 'Waiting for rollout to finish' or 'deployment "web-app" successfully rolled out'.
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 rollout history deployment web-app
Why it's wrong here
kubectl rollout history deployment web-app displays the historical revisions of a Deployment by listing the ReplicaSets it has created, with revision numbers, change causes, and desired/current replica counts. This is a backward-looking audit trail of past configurations, not a live view of the rollout currently in progress. It will not tell you whether the current rollout is progressing, stuck, completed, or failed, which is exactly what 'rollout status' reports.
- ✗
kubectl describe deployment web-app
Why it's wrong here
kubectl describe deployment web-app provides a detailed static snapshot of the Deployment object, including its spec, labels, selectors, resource requirements, and aggregated status conditions such as Available and Progressing. Although it may show high-level condition messages, it does not continuously indicate the progress of an ongoing rollout, such as how many new pods have been created or how many are ready during a rolling update. The describe output also mixes unrelated details, making it less direct than a dedicated rollout-status check.
- ✗
kubectl status deployment web-app
Why it's wrong here
kubectl status deployment web-app is not a valid kubectl command because the 'status' verb does not exist in kubectl's command-line interface. Running it produces an error such as 'unknown command' or suggests alternatives like 'kubectl rollout status' or 'kubectl get deployment' and performs no action. Since there is no subordinate 'status' command under kubectl, this option can never successfully view rollout status.
- ✓
kubectl rollout status deployment web-app
Why this is correct
kubectl rollout status deployment web-app is the dedicated command for observing the progress of a Deployment rollout. It watches the Deployment's updated ReplicaSet status and returns a stream of updates, for example 'Waiting for rollout to finish: 1 out of 3 new replicas have been updated...', exiting with 0 when the rollout succeeds or non-zero if it fails. Its synchronous behavior makes it ideal for scripting CI/CD pipelines that need to wait for a deployment to settle.
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