KCNA Kubernetes Fundamentals Practice Question
Which TWO of the following are control plane components? (Select TWO)
⚠ Common exam trap
A common mistake is to think that kube-proxy or kubelet are control plane components because they are essential for cluster operation. However, they run on each node and are part of the node-level components, not the control plane.
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
✓
etcd
etcd is a distributed key-value store that holds the cluster's state and configuration data, making it a core control plane component. The kube-apiserver is the front-end for the Kubernetes control plane, exposing the Kubernetes API and handling all RESTful requests to manage the cluster. Both are essential for cluster management and orchestration, not for running application workloads.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
etcd
Why this is correct
Yes, etcd is a control plane component.
- ✓
kube-apiserver
Why this is correct
Yes, it is a control plane component.
- ✗
kube-proxy
Why it's wrong here
kube-proxy runs on worker nodes.
- ✗
kubelet
Why it's wrong here
kubelet runs on worker nodes.
- ✗
Container runtime
Why it's wrong here
Container runtime runs on worker nodes.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
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