Master Kubernetes DNS resolution and service discovery with CoreDNS. Learn DNS patterns, troubleshooting techniques, and advanced configuration strategies essential for the CKA exam and production Kubernetes environments.
In production Kubernetes environments, managing external access to your services is critical. While Services handle internal cluster networking, Ingress provides sophisticated HTTP/HTTPS routing from the outside world. This guide covers everything you need to know for the CKA exam and production deployments, including the modern Gateway API that's reshaping Kubernetes networking in 2025.
Imagine running 50 microservices in your cluster. Without Ingress, you'd need 50 LoadBalancer Services—each with its own expensive cloud load balancer and public IP address. That's not just costly; it's operationally nightmarish.
Ingress solves this by providing:
For the CKA exam, you'll need to demonstrate hands-on competency with Ingress resources, troubleshoot misconfigurations, and understand controller selection. In production, mastering Ingress means the difference between elegant traffic management and a tangled mess of load balancers.
The landscape is evolving. While traditional Ingress remains the standard (and what's tested on the CKA), the Gateway API represents Kubernetes networking's future—offering role-oriented design, better extensibility, and more expressive routing rules. Understanding both is essential for modern Kubernetes practitioners.
In a world where security breaches make headlines daily, protecting your Kubernetes cluster isn't optional—it's mission-critical. Network Policies are your first line of defense, implementing a zero-trust security model within your cluster. For CKA candidates, mastering Network Policies isn't just about passing the exam (though they represent a significant portion of the 20% Services & Networking domain)—it's about understanding how to build production-grade, secure Kubernetes environments.
Kubernetes Services are the cornerstone of networking in modern containerized applications. They provide stable, reliable access to dynamic sets of Pods, abstracting away the complexity of Pod IP management and enabling seamless communication between application components. For anyone preparing for the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) exam, mastering Services is essential—they represent 20% of the exam's Services & Networking domain.
In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore how Services work, when to use each type, and the practical kubectl commands you need to succeed in both the exam and production environments.