KCNA Container Orchestration Practice Question
A pod in the 'production' namespace is in a CrashLoopBackOff state. The pod has been running successfully for several days. You run 'kubectl describe pod app-pod -n production' and see the message: 'OOMKilled'. What is the MOST appropriate action to resolve this issue?
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mix-up: candidates confuse OOMKilled with a generic crash and choose to delete/recreate the pod (Option B), not realizing that the underlying resource limit configuration remains unchanged and will cause the same failure again.
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
✓
Increase the memory limit in the pod's container resource specification
The pod is failing with an 'OOMKilled' status, which indicates that the container's memory usage exceeded its configured memory limit. Increasing the memory limit in the pod's container resource specification allows the container to use more memory without being terminated by the Out-Of-Memory (OOM) killer, resolving the crash loop. This is the most direct and appropriate action to address the resource exhaustion.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Increase the memory limit in the pod's container resource specification
Why this is correct
OOMKilled indicates the container exceeded its configured memory limit. Increasing the memory limit allows the container to use more memory and prevents the OOM kill.
- ✗
Delete and recreate the pod to clear the crash loop
Why it's wrong here
Deleting and recreating the pod without changing the resource limits will result in the same OOMKilled event.
- ✗
Increase the CPU request for the container
Why it's wrong here
OOMKilled is a memory issue, not a CPU issue. Increasing CPU requests will not prevent the container from being killed due to memory exhaustion.
- ✗
Delete the namespace and redeploy all workloads
Why it's wrong here
This is a destructive action that would affect all workloads in the namespace. It is not appropriate for resolving a single pod's memory issue.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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