# KodeKloud: Beta Courses Prep Course - Cilium Certified Associate (CCA) Certification

## Prep Course - Cilium Certified Associate (CCA) Certification

### Introduction

- [Course Introduction](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Introduction/Course-Introduction/page.md): Hands-on course teaching Cilium networking, security, observability, installation, multi-cluster and exam prep for Kubernetes operators using eBPF
- [Exam Overview](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Introduction/Exam-Overview/page.md): Overview of the Cilium Certified Associate exam covering audience, logistics, topic weights, and foundational competencies in Cilium, Kubernetes networking, eBPF, observability, policy, and installation

### Cilium Overview

- [Kubernetes Networking Overview](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Cilium-Overview/Kubernetes-Networking-Overview/page.md): Explains Kubernetes networking basics, Pod and Service CIDRs, kube-proxy, NetworkPolicy, and the role of CNI plugins like Cilium in providing networking and enforcement.
- [Cilium Overview](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Cilium-Overview/Cilium-Overview/page.md): Overview of Cilium, an eBPF-powered Kubernetes platform providing CNI networking, identity-based security, L7 policies, load balancing, observability via Hubble, and service mesh integrations
- [Architecture](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Cilium-Overview/Architecture/page.md): Overview of Cilium architecture covering per-node agent, eBPF datapath, operator, Envoy L7 proxy, Hubble observability, kube-proxy replacement, and sidecar versus sidecarless service mesh models
- [eBPF Basics](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Cilium-Overview/eBPF-Basics/page.md): Overview of eBPF, kernel versus user space, benefits over kernel modules, use cases in observability, networking and security, and how Cilium and XDP leverage eBPF

### Installing & Configuring Cilium

- [Installation Overview](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Installing-Configuring-Cilium/Installation-Overview/page.md): Overview of Kubernetes resources and manifests created by Cilium, explaining agents, Envoy, operator, ConfigMaps, ServiceAccounts, RBAC, CRDs, and installation methods
- [Installation with CLI](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Installing-Configuring-Cilium/Installation-with-CLI/page.md): Guide to installing and configuring Cilium using the cilium CLI, including download, installation, dry-run previews, Helm value configuration, status checks, and best practices.
- [Demo Installation with CLI](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Installing-Configuring-Cilium/Demo-Installation-with-CLI/page.md): Guide to install and verify Cilium on Kubernetes using the Cilium CLI, including creating a kind cluster, installing the CLI, deploying Cilium, checking status, and previewing manifests.
- [Installation with Helm](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Installing-Configuring-Cilium/Installation-with-Helm/page.md): How to install and configure Cilium with Helm, manage CRDs, customize values, and verify deployment in Kubernetes.
- [Demo Installation with Helm](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Installing-Configuring-Cilium/Demo-Installation-with-Helm/page.md): Guide to installing and verifying Cilium on Kubernetes using Helm, customizing values including IPv6, and checking runtime status and manifests
- [Demo What was Installed](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Installing-Configuring-Cilium/Demo-What-was-Installed/page.md): Overview of Kubernetes resources Cilium installs and how to inspect components, ConfigMaps, Secrets, RBAC, CRDs, DaemonSets, Deployments and optional Hubble observability
- [Demo Updating Cilium Configuration](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Installing-Configuring-Cilium/Demo-Updating-Cilium-Configuration/page.md): Updating Cilium configuration on Kubernetes clusters using Helm or ConfigMap edits, restarting components, and verifying changes.
- [Note About Cilium CLI](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Installing-Configuring-Cilium/Note-About-Cilium-CLI/page.md): Explains difference between the local Cilium CLI used for installation and cluster management and the in‑pod cilium/cilium-dbg tools used for in-cluster diagnostics and debugging

### Exploring Cilium

- [Section Introduction](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Exploring-Cilium/Section-Introduction/page.md): Practical guide to Cilium configuration, routing modes, kube-proxy-less performance, terminology, and packet flow for Kubernetes networking production use.
- [IP Address Management IPAM](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Exploring-Cilium/IP-Address-Management-IPAM/page.md): Explains how Cilium manages pod IP addresses, comparing Kubernetes host-scope and Cilium cluster-scope IPAM, allocation of per-node CIDRs, operator roles, and configuration options
- [Routing Modes](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Exploring-Cilium/Routing-Modes/page.md): Explains Cilium routing modes, comparing encapsulation and native routing, their requirements, tradeoffs, configuration, and operational implications for pod-to-pod networking.
- [Demo Routing Modes](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Exploring-Cilium/Demo-Routing-Modes/page.md): Demonstrates Cilium tunnel versus native routing modes, inspects packet flows, and shows required physical network changes to enable native pod subnet routing with static routes or BGP.
- [Kube Proxy less](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Exploring-Cilium/Kube-Proxy-less/page.md): Explains replacing kube-proxy with Cilium to implement service routing and load balancing via eBPF, covering benefits, configuration steps, verification, and operational caveats
- [Demo Kube Proxy](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Exploring-Cilium/Demo-Kube-Proxy/page.md): Guide to configuring Cilium to run alongside or replace kube-proxy using eBPF on a kind cluster, including installation, kube-proxy removal, iptables cleanup and service connectivity tests.
- [Terminology](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Exploring-Cilium/Terminology/page.md): Explains Cilium networking terms including endpoints and identities and how identity based policies replace brittle IP based policies for Kubernetes Pod security and observability
- [Packet Walk](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Exploring-Cilium/Packet-Walk/page.md): Explains high level packet traversal in a Cilium Kubernetes cluster showing eBPF attachments, service DNAT, conntrack, BPF maps and VXLAN encapsulation for pod to pod traffic.
- [Cilium CLI](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Exploring-Cilium/Cilium-CLI/page.md): Explains cilium-cli commands to view and modify Cilium configuration, enable and disable debug logging, and verify pod restarts and logs for troubleshooting on Kubernetes.

### Network Policy

- [Security Introduction](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Network-Policy/Security-Introduction/page.md): Guide to restricting Kubernetes pod communication using NetworkPolicy and Cilium's eBPF-based identity and L7 policies for least privilege enforcement.
- [Network Policy Limitations](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Network-Policy/Network-Policy-Limitations/page.md): Explains limitations of Kubernetes native NetworkPolicy and why extended engines like Cilium add CRDs for L7 filtering, FQDN rules, richer selectors, explicit deny and cluster scoped policies.
- [Cilium Network Policy](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Network-Policy/Cilium-Network-Policy/page.md): Overview of Cilium Network Policy covering L3 L4 and L7 rules, selector semantics, port and CIDR handling, service and FQDN matching, entities, deny rules, and cluster wide policies
- [Demo Cilium Network Policy Part 1](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Network-Policy/Demo-Cilium-Network-Policy-Part-1/page.md): Demonstrates creating and testing L3 Cilium network policies to control namespace-scoped ingress and egress, including cross-namespace rules, CIDR egress, and default deny behaviors.
- [Demo Cilium Network Policy Part 2](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Network-Policy/Demo-Cilium-Network-Policy-Part-2/page.md): Hands-on guide to Cilium network policies covering L3 L4 and L7 controls, egress and ingress examples, DNS and HTTP filtering, port and CIDR rules, and clusterwide policies
- [Policy Audit Mode](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Network-Policy/Policy-Audit-Mode/page.md): Explains Cilium's policy audit mode for observing would-be allows or denies, how to enable globally or per-endpoint, and how to inspect audited flows with Hubble

### Service Mesh

- [Section Introduction](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Service-Mesh/Section-Introduction/page.md): Overview of service mesh fundamentals and how Cilium uses eBPF, Envoy integration, and components like Hubble to provide traffic management, security, observability, and policy enforcement
- [What is a Service Mesh](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Service-Mesh/What-is-a-Service-Mesh/page.md): Explains service mesh, sidecar proxies, and how they provide security, observability, and traffic management for microservices, plus comparisons of implementations like Istio, Linkerd, Consul, and Cilium.
- [Cilium Service Mesh vs Others](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Service-Mesh/Cilium-Service-Mesh-vs-Others/page.md): Comparison of Cilium’s sidecarless eBPF-based service mesh with traditional sidecar proxies, detailing traffic flow, resource and operational trade-offs, and when to prefer each approach
- [Cilium Ingress](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Service-Mesh/Cilium-Ingress/page.md): Cilium's Kubernetes Ingress using eBPF for L3 L4 routing and Envoy for selective L7, with Helm enablement, load balancer modes, Gateway API support and troubleshooting tips.
- [Demo Cilium Ingress](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Service-Mesh/Demo-Cilium-Ingress/page.md): Guide to enabling, configuring, and testing the Cilium ingress controller on Kubernetes, deploying example apps, creating an Ingress with the cilium class, and validating routing
- [Cilium Gateway API](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Service-Mesh/Cilium-Gateway-API/page.md): Explains Kubernetes Gateway API, advantages over Ingress, resource separation, manifests, cross-namespace rules, and how to enable and use Cilium's Gateway API implementation.
- [Demo Cilium Gateway API](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Service-Mesh/Demo-Cilium-Gateway-API/page.md): Guide to enable and configure Cilium Gateway API, install Gateway API CRDs, create Gateway and HTTPRoute resources, deploy demo services, and test routing for multiple host and path backends
- [Network Policies with Ingress Gateway API](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Service-Mesh/Network-Policies-with-Ingress-Gateway-API/page.md): Configuring Cilium network policies for ingress and Gateway API traffic, covering external to ingress and ingress to backend using reserved ingress identity and label scoped rules
- [Cilium Encryption](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Service-Mesh/Cilium-Encryption/page.md): Guide to enabling transparent inter-node pod encryption in Kubernetes with Cilium, comparing IPsec and WireGuard and showing configuration and verification steps.
- [Demo Cilium Encryption](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Service-Mesh/Demo-Cilium-Encryption/page.md): Guide demonstrating how to enable and verify Cilium IPsec encryption between pods by capturing and comparing unencrypted and encrypted traffic and inspecting encapsulation and cilium_host outer addresses
- [mTLS](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Service-Mesh/mTLS/page.md): Explains how Cilium uses SPIFFE and SPIRE to provide node‑agent mutual TLS with eBPF enforcement, and how to enable, enforce, observe, and troubleshoot mTLS in Kubernetes
- [Demo mTLS](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Service-Mesh/Demo-mTLS/page.md): Guide demonstrating how to enable and validate mTLS in Cilium using SPIRE, configure Helm, deploy workloads and policies, and observe authentication via agent logs.

### Cluster Mesh

- [Section Introduction](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Cluster-Mesh/Section-Introduction/page.md): Guide to using Cluster Mesh for multi-cluster Kubernetes networking, enabling cross-cluster connectivity, load balancing, and inter-cluster network policies with security best practices
- [Cluster Mesh Basics](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Cluster-Mesh/Cluster-Mesh-Basics/page.md): Overview of Cilium Cluster Mesh features, setup steps, prerequisites, and KVStoreMesh scalability
- [Global Service](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Cluster-Mesh/Global-Service/page.md): Explains using Cilium Cluster Mesh to expose and load balance Kubernetes Services across clusters with global services, sharing controls, and affinity options.
- [Demo Configuring Cluster Mesh](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Cluster-Mesh/Demo-Configuring-Cluster-Mesh/page.md): Guide to configure Cilium Cluster Mesh across two Kubernetes clusters, install Cilium, connect clusters, advertise global services, test service sharing and affinity, and clean up.
- [Cluster Mesh Network Policy](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Cluster-Mesh/Cluster-Mesh-Network-Policy/page.md): Explains how Cilium network policies are enforced per cluster in a Cluster Mesh and require per-cluster application to restrict cross-cluster traffic
- [Demo Cluster Mesh Network Policy](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Cluster-Mesh/Demo-Cluster-Mesh-Network-Policy/page.md): Demonstrates Cilium Cluster Mesh network policy behavior across two Kubernetes clusters, showing global services, local enforcement, cross cluster label matching, and restricting allowed sources by cluster label.

### Observability

- [Section Introduction](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Observability/Section-Introduction/page.md): Guides how to enable and use Cilium Hubble for network observability, inspect flows via CLI and UI, and integrate Cilium metrics with Prometheus for monitoring and alerts
- [Hubble Basics](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Observability/Hubble-Basics/page.md): Overview of Hubble observability for Kubernetes networking, covering architecture, deployment, CLI and UI usage, troubleshooting, metrics, and enabling Hubble with Cilium
- [Prometheus and Grafana Metrics](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Observability/Prometheus-and-Grafana-Metrics/page.md): Guide to enable and expose Cilium, Hubble, and operator metrics for Prometheus and Grafana using Helm values, ServiceMonitors, and verification steps.
- [Demo Hubble](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Observability/Demo-Hubble/page.md): Guide to enable and use Hubble with Cilium to observe Kubernetes L3/L4 flows and L7 HTTP, install CLI and UI, deploy samples, and validate network policies.

### BGP & External Networking

- [Section Introduction](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/BGP-External-Networking/Section-Introduction/page.md): Configuring Cilium to advertise routes via BGP, manage LoadBalancer IPAM for Kubernetes services, and validate external IP assignment and end to end traffic flow.
- [Egress Gateway](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/BGP-External-Networking/Egress-Gateway/page.md): Describes using Cilium egress gateway to route selected pod outbound traffic through designated nodes, SNATing to fixed egress IPs for compliance and centralized logging
- [Demo Egress Gateway](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/BGP-External-Networking/Demo-Egress-Gateway/page.md): Guide to configuring and testing a Cilium egress gateway in Kubernetes, demonstrating centralized SNAT egress, VXLAN forwarding, egress policies, and packet capture verification
- [LoadBalancer IPAM](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/BGP-External-Networking/LoadBalancer-IPAM/page.md): Explains Cilium LoadBalancer IPAM, configuring IP pools, allocating external IPs for LoadBalancer Services, and methods to advertise or route those IPs to the cluster
- [Demo LoadBalancer IPAM](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/BGP-External-Networking/Demo-LoadBalancer-IPAM/page.md): Demonstrates using Cilium LoadBalancer IPAM to assign external IPs from a configured pool to Kubernetes LoadBalancer Services in on-premises clusters.
- [BGPBorder Gateway Protocol](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/BGP-External-Networking/BGPBorder-Gateway-Protocol/page.md): Explains how to integrate BGP with Cilium to advertise pod and service routes for native Kubernetes routing, configuration of CRDs, and troubleshooting
- [Demo BGPBorder Gateway Protocol](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/BGP-External-Networking/Demo-BGPBorder-Gateway-Protocol/page.md): Guide to enable and configure Cilium BGP control plane on Kubernetes to advertise Pod CIDRs and Service IPs to external routers for direct routing and ECMP.
- [L2 Announcement](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/BGP-External-Networking/L2-Announcement/page.md): Explains Cilium L2 announcement allowing cluster nodes to reply to ARP for service IPs on a flat Layer 2 network so external hosts reach services with per-service failover.
- [Demo L2 Announcement](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/BGP-External-Networking/Demo-L2-Announcement/page.md): Demonstrates Cilium L2 announcement to assign external IPs to LoadBalancer services and have nodes answer ARP in a local Kind Kubernetes cluster.

### Optimization

- [Tuning](https://notes.kodekloud.com/docs/Prep-Course-Cilium-Certified-Associate-CCA-Certification/Optimization/Tuning/page.md): Practical guidance to tune Cilium for improved throughput and latency by using netdev datapath, host routing bypass, and BIG TCP with deployment and testing considerations