KCNA Container Orchestration Practice Question
What is the purpose of a readiness probe in a Kubernetes pod?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse readiness probes with liveness probes, mistakenly thinking both are used for restarting containers, when in fact readiness probes only control traffic routing and do not trigger restarts.
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
✓
To determine if the container is ready to serve traffic
A readiness probe in Kubernetes determines whether a container inside a pod is ready to start accepting traffic. If the probe fails, the pod is removed from the Service's endpoints, preventing traffic from being routed to an unready container. This is distinct from a liveness probe, which checks if the container is healthy and should be restarted.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
To check if the pod has been scheduled on a node
Why it's wrong here
Scheduling is determined by the scheduler, not by probes.
- ✗
To measure the CPU and memory usage of the container
Why it's wrong here
Resource usage is measured by metrics-server, not by readiness probes.
- ✗
To determine if the container is healthy and should be restarted
Why it's wrong here
This describes a liveness probe.
- ✓
To determine if the container is ready to serve traffic
Why this is correct
Readiness probes indicate when a container is ready to start accepting requests. If it fails, traffic is not sent to the pod.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Kubernetes Overview and Core Components
Key term
ReplicaSet and Replication
A ReplicaSet ensures a specified number of identical pod instances are running at all times in Kubernetes, using replication to maintain availability and stability.
Key term
Kubernetes API Primitives
Kubernetes API Primitives are the basic building blocks that the Kubernetes API uses to represent and manage the state of a cluster, such as Pods, Services, Deployments, and Namespaces.
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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.