Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) Practice Test

The component responsible for defining how traffic should be routed to services in Kubernetes is the Kubernetes Ingress. Ingress serves as an entry point for external HTTP/S traffic into the Kubernetes cluster, allowing users to manage external access to the services. It provides HTTP routing rules to various services based on the request's host and path. This makes it especially useful for load balancing and SSL termination, enabling elegant management of incoming requests and directing them to the appropriate backend services.

While Kubernetes Services are crucial for exposing and accessing pods, they do not directly define the routing rules for external traffic; their primary role is to provide stable endpoints for accessing pods regardless of their lifecycle. Pods are the smallest deployable units in Kubernetes that typically run a single container, and they do not manage traffic routing. Similarly, the Replication Controller is responsible for maintaining the desired number of pod replicas but does not handle traffic routing or external access.