kubernetes/kops · error

error describing subnet %s: %v

Error message

error describing subnet %s: %v

What it means

setupVPC (AWS branch) wraps the EC2 DescribeSubnets error when looking up the first provided subnet ID to infer the cluster's VPC. It fires when --subnet-ids were given without --networkid and the AWS API call fails (bad subnet ID, auth, region, network).

Source

Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/cloudup/new_cluster.go:652

		return "", false, fmt.Errorf("kubernetes feature gate must include a feature name")
	}

	return featureGate, enabled, nil
}

func setupVPC(opt *NewClusterOptions, cluster *api.Cluster, cloud fi.Cloud) error {
	ctx := context.TODO()
	cluster.Spec.Networking.NetworkID = opt.NetworkID

	switch cluster.GetCloudProvider() {
	case api.CloudProviderAWS:
		if cluster.Spec.Networking.NetworkID == "" && len(opt.SubnetIDs) > 0 {
			awsCloud := cloud.(awsup.AWSCloud)
			res, err := awsCloud.EC2().DescribeSubnets(ctx, &ec2.DescribeSubnetsInput{
				SubnetIds: []string{opt.SubnetIDs[0]},
			})
			if err != nil {
				return fmt.Errorf("error describing subnet %s: %v", opt.SubnetIDs[0], err)
			}
			if len(res.Subnets) == 0 || res.Subnets[0].VpcId == nil {
				return fmt.Errorf("failed to determine VPC id of subnet %s", opt.SubnetIDs[0])
			}
			cluster.Spec.Networking.NetworkID = *res.Subnets[0].VpcId
		}

		if featureflag.Spotinst.Enabled() {
			if opt.SpotinstProduct != "" {
				cluster.Spec.CloudProvider.AWS.SpotinstProduct = new(opt.SpotinstProduct)
			}
			if opt.SpotinstOrientation != "" {
				cluster.Spec.CloudProvider.AWS.SpotinstOrientation = new(opt.SpotinstOrientation)
			}
		}

	case api.CloudProviderGCE:
		if cluster.Spec.CloudConfig == nil {

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Verify the subnet IDs exist in the target region and account
2. Check AWS credentials and region configuration
3. Pass --networkid explicitly to skip subnet lookup

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/cloudup/new_cluster.go:652 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c143224aab3670d3. Report an issue: GitHub.