Yes, I’m here with another exam post. CKA is officially done.

I won’t lie to you—this one pushed me. If CKAD was a warm-up, CKA was the actual workout. I found the CKAD significantly easier compared to this beast. But with this hurdle cleared, only one final step remains for the full Kubeastronaut status. Soon, I’ll be firing up the rockets for real.

Small Wins in Hard Times

To be honest, I’ve been going through a bit of a rough patch in my personal life lately. In times like these, burying your head in documentation and terminal screens can be oddly therapeutic. Achieving these goals gives me a genuine sense of joy—a reminder that I’m moving forward even when things feel stagnant elsewhere.

Let’s call it a small step for humanity, but a giant leap for me. :-D

Also, have you checked LinkedIn lately? My feed has basically turned into a space station. Everyone is becoming a Kubeastronaut! It looks like I’m going to have a lot of astronaut friends up there in orbit, which is actually pretty fun to see.

How I Prepared: The Stack

I didn’t want to drown in too many resources, so I stuck to the classics:

• Mumshad’s Course: As always, the gold standard. It covers everything you need.
• Killer.sh: These practice tests are brutal, but they prepare you for the reality of the exam. If you can survive Killer.sh, the real exam feels manageable.

The Homelab Experience: Multipass

One of the highlights of this study period was my local setup. I ran all my practices in my own homelab, heavily utilizing Multipass.

I have to say, using Multipass was a delight. When you are studying for CKA, you will break the cluster. You will mess up the certificates, crash the kubelet, or destroy the networking. In a cloud environment, this is a pain. With Multipass? I just took snapshots before trying something risky.

When something exploded—or when I accidentally bricked the control plane—I didn’t panic. I just restored the snapshot and continued the adventure immediately. No stress, just restore and go. It gave me the freedom to experiment without fear.

What’s Next? The Final Boss

Now, only the Final Boss remains: CKS

I have a feeling this is going to be the toughest one yet. I’ve always felt that the security side of things is my weak point. Configuring policies and digging into the deep security trenches isn’t my natural habitat.

But hey, that’s exactly why I’m doing it. Maybe—just maybe—I’ll get stronger in that domain while preparing for the battle. The trilogy needs an ending, right?