Challenges

Focused, hands-on DevOps and server-side problems with hints, feedback, and automated solution checks.

Community Collection

Challenges contributed by the community members sharing their knowledge and expertise.

Challenge

Safe Node Drain With a Disruption Budget

node-01 is due for maintenance, and it hosts two of the three checkout-api replicas. Add a PodDisruptionBudget so the drain can never take checkout below two available replicas, then drain the node.

Challenge

Lock Down Container Syscalls With Seccomp Profiles

Run a Deployment under the container runtime's seccomp profile, roll out a custom profile to the worker nodes, and fix a profile that blocks a syscall the application needs.

Challenge

Roll Out Pod Security Standards Across Three Namespaces

The platform team is rolling out Pod Security Admission. A monitoring agent is already blocked, the storefront team needs a staged rollout, and payments must move to the strictest level without losing its running service.

Challenge

Node Is Ready, but Pods Won't Schedule

node-02 is back from a kernel upgrade but still shows Ready,SchedulingDisabled, and the Pods that can only run on it are stuck in Pending. Bring the node back into service and get the workload running, without touching the workload itself.

Challenge

Split a Deployment Evenly Across Two Zones

A storefront needs eight replicas, and the platform team wants them split down the middle between the two availability zones. An uneven split must be refused by the scheduler rather than quietly tolerated.

Challenge

Migrate a Traefik Ingress to the Gateway API and Cut Traffic Over

The storefront APIs are served through a Traefik Ingress with TLS and two path rules. Reproduce that configuration with a Gateway and an HTTPRoute on the same hostname, cut traffic over to it, and retire the Ingress.

Challenge

Debug a Pod Stuck at 0/1 Ready Due to a Readiness Probe

A new intern learning about probes wrote a small Pod manifest. The exec command and the application are both correct, but the Pod never becomes Ready because one probe parameter is missing. Find it and add it.

Challenge

Pick and Deploy the Least Permissive NetworkPolicy

The security team left five NetworkPolicy files on the workstation. Only one of them lets the frontend reach the backend while granting nothing more. Identify it and deploy it, unchanged.