hashicorp/nomad · error

volume has unrecognized type %s

Error message

volume has unrecognized type %s

What it means

VolumeRequest.Validate returns this error when the volume's Type is neither "host" nor "csi". Nomad only recognizes these two volume types for volume requests, so any other value makes the whole request invalid immediately.

Source

Thrown at nomad/structs/volumes.go:150

		return false
	case v.Sticky != o.Sticky:
		return false
	case v.AccessMode != o.AccessMode:
		return false
	case v.AttachmentMode != o.AttachmentMode:
		return false
	case !v.MountOptions.Equal(o.MountOptions):
		return false
	case v.PerAlloc != o.PerAlloc:
		return false
	}
	return true
}

func (v *VolumeRequest) Validate(jobType string, taskGroupCount, canaries int) error {
	if !(v.Type == VolumeTypeHost ||
		v.Type == VolumeTypeCSI) {
		return fmt.Errorf("volume has unrecognized type %s", v.Type)
	}

	var mErr multierror.Error
	addErr := func(msg string, args ...any) {
		mErr.Errors = append(mErr.Errors, fmt.Errorf(msg, args...))
	}

	if v.Source == "" {
		addErr("volume has an empty source")
	}
	if v.PerAlloc {
		if jobType == JobTypeSystem || jobType == JobTypeSysBatch {
			addErr("volume cannot be per_alloc for system or sysbatch jobs")
		}
		if canaries > 0 {
			addErr("volume cannot be per_alloc when canaries are in use")
		}
		if v.Sticky {

View on GitHub (pinned to 482b49bf1a)

Solutions

1. Set the volume's type to "host" or "csi".
2. Check the error message suffix for the exact unrecognized type string and fix the spelling.
3. For dynamic/host volume workflows verify the correct type keyword against your Nomad version's docs.

Example fix

// before
volume "db" { type = "persistent" }
// after
volume "db" { type = "csi" }

if v.Type != "host" && v.Type != "csi" {
    return fmt.Errorf("volume type must be host or csi, got %q", v.Type)
}

func isValidVolumeType(t string) bool {
    return t == "host" || t == "csi"
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling Validate(jobType, taskGroupCount, canaries) on a VolumeRequest whose Type is not VolumeTypeHost ("host") or VolumeTypeCSI ("csi") — e.g. type = "local" or a typo like "hosts" in a job spec's volume block.

Common situations: Typo in the volume type field of a job file; using types from other orchestrators (e.g. Kubernetes 'persistentVolumeClaim'); older configs predating CSI volume support that used now-removed type names.

Understand the failure class

Background: Invalid enum value errors: "Unknown type", "Invalid scope", "must be one of" — when a string is not on the library's allowed list — this error's family across 23 libraries.

Related errors

• volume mount has an invalid propagation mode
• wait config is nil or empty
• missing datacenter for client registration
• default_identity_ttl must be greater than 0
• max_identity_ttl must be greater than 0

AI-assisted analysis of hashicorp/nomad@482b49bf1a (2026-09-04). Data as JSON: /api/errors/feea553c86b43f30. Report an issue: GitHub.