KCNA Kubernetes Fundamentals Practice Question
A team runs a stateless web application in Kubernetes. They have a Deployment named 'web-app' with 5 replicas. They want to ensure that a Service named 'web-svc' distributes traffic evenly to all healthy pods. Which type of Service should they use?
⚠ Common exam trap
Test-takers frequently think NodePort or Headless Service are needed for load balancing, but the question specifically asks for internal traffic distribution to pods, and ClusterIP is the default and correct Service type for that purpose, while Headless Service actually removes load balancing entirely.
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
✓
ClusterIP
A ClusterIP Service is the correct choice because it provides a stable virtual IP address and round-robin load balancing across healthy pods in the Deployment. By default, kube-proxy uses iptables or IPVS rules to distribute traffic evenly to all ready pod endpoints, ensuring stateless web application requests are balanced without requiring external exposure.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
ClusterIP
Why this is correct
A ClusterIP Service exposes the application on a cluster-internal IP and load-balances across all pods in the backing set.
- ✗
Headless Service
Why it's wrong here
Headless Services do not load-balance; they return all pod IPs for DNS-based discovery.
- ✗
ExternalName Service
Why it's wrong here
ExternalName maps a Service to a DNS name, not to pods.
- ✗
NodePort
Why it's wrong here
NodePort also load-balances, but it is primarily for external access; the question does not mention external access.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This KCNA 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 KCNA exam.