easyMultiple Choice
CV0-004 Practice Question: A cloud administrator notices that a load…
A cloud administrator notices that a load balancer is marking all instances as unhealthy. The health check is configured to check a specific URL path. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?
⚠ Common exam trap
CompTIA often tests the distinction between connectivity issues (security groups, network ACLs) and application-level health check failures, leading candidates to incorrectly choose security group misconfiguration when the real issue is a missing or misconfigured health check endpoint.
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
✓
The health check path does not exist on the instances.
The health check is configured to check a specific URL path. If that path does not exist on the instances (e.g., returns a 404 or 403 status), the load balancer will consider the instances unhealthy. This is the most direct cause because the health check relies on a successful HTTP response (typically 200 OK) from that exact path.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
The health check path does not exist on the instances.
Why this is correct
The health check queries a specific URL path; if that path returns 404 or is absent, every instance fails the check and is marked unhealthy. The load balancer's probe therefore reports all instances down despite the instances themselves running.
- ✗
The auto scaling group's minimum size is too low.
Why it's wrong here
Minimum size governs how many instances the auto scaling group maintains, not whether their URL paths respond. Capacity planning is what this setting addresses; a too-low minimum causes under-provisioning, not uniform health-check failure across running instances.
- ✗
The security group for the instances blocks traffic from the load balancer.
Why it's wrong here
A security group blocking load balancer traffic would also prevent the health check reaching the path, but the stem specifies a URL path check, so a wrong or misconfigured path returning 404 is the more likely cause. Security groups are tempting because they commonly cause connectivity failures in cloud deployments.
- ✗
The instances are under high CPU load.
Why it's wrong here
High CPU load can slow responses, but a healthy instance under load still returns HTTP 200 on the monitored path, so the check would not fail uniformly. CPU metrics are what auto scaling alarms and performance monitoring address, not URL-path health checks.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This CV0-004 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA 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 CV0-004 exam.