KCNA Kubernetes Fundamentals Practice Question
You have a Deployment with 3 replicas. You need to perform a rolling update with 2 extra pods during the update and ensure that only 1 pod is unavailable at any time. Which update strategy configuration achieves this?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many candidates confuse maxSurge and maxUnavailable as percentages or misinterpret the requirement for '2 extra pods' as a surge of 2, but forget that maxUnavailable must also be set to 1 to limit downtime, leading them to pick option A or B.
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
✓
maxSurge: 2, maxUnavailable: 1
It sets maxSurge to 2 (allowing up to 2 extra pods above the desired 3, for a total of 5 pods during the update) and maxUnavailable to 1 (ensuring at most 1 pod is unavailable at any time). This satisfies the requirement of having 2 extra pods during the update while keeping only 1 pod unavailable.
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Same concept, more angles
2 more ways this is tested on KCNA
These questions test the same concept from different angles. Work through them to make sure you can recognise it however the exam phrases it.
Variation 1. You have a Deployment that manages 3 replicas. You want to perform a rolling update with a maximum of 2 Pods unavailable during the update. Which field should you set in the Deployment spec?
hard- ✓ A.spec.strategy.rollingUpdate.maxUnavailable
- B.spec.minReadySeconds
- C.spec.strategy.rollingUpdate.maxSurge
- D.spec.replicas
Why A: The `maxUnavailable` field in `spec.strategy.rollingUpdate.maxUnavailable` specifies the maximum number of Pods that can be unavailable during a rolling update. Setting it to 2 allows up to 2 Pods to be taken down at a time, ensuring that at least 1 Pod remains available (since the Deployment has 3 replicas). This field directly controls the availability tolerance during the update process.
Variation 2. A Deployment is rolling out a new version. The rollout has stalled, and 'kubectl rollout status deployment/myapp' shows 'Waiting for deployment rollout to finish: 2 out of 5 new replicas have been updated...'. The Deployment's spec.strategy.rollingUpdate.maxUnavailable is set to 25% and maxSurge is 25%. What is the maximum number of Pods that could be unavailable during this rollout?
hard- A.1
- B.3
- ✓ C.2
- D.0
Why C: With maxUnavailable=25% and maxSurge=25%, the maximum number of unavailable Pods during a rolling update is calculated as the ceiling of 25% of the desired replicas (5), which is 2. This means up to 2 Pods can be unavailable at any time, ensuring the rollout can proceed while maintaining availability.
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.