kubernetes/kops · error

error doing HTTP fetch of %q: %v

Error message

error doing HTTP fetch of %q: %v

What it means

Thrown by OpenURL when httpClient.Do fails executing the GET: network-level errors — DNS resolution failure, connection refused/timeout, TLS handshake problems, or the overall download timeout elapsing. The request itself was valid; reaching the server is what failed.

Source

Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/http.go:154

	}
	return actual, nil
}

// OpenURL opens a hardened HTTP GET stream for url.
func OpenURL(url string) (io.ReadCloser, error) {
	httpClient := newDownloadHTTPClient()

	ctx, cancel := context.WithTimeout(context.Background(), downloadTimeout)
	req, err := http.NewRequestWithContext(ctx, http.MethodGet, url, nil)
	if err != nil {
		cancel()
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("cannot create request: %v", err)
	}

	response, err := httpClient.Do(req)
	if err != nil {
		cancel()
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("error doing HTTP fetch of %q: %v", url, err)
	}

	// http.Client follows 3xx automatically, so anything outside 2xx that reaches us is a bug or a missing Location.
	if response.StatusCode < 200 || response.StatusCode > 299 {
		response.Body.Close()
		cancel()
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("unexpected response from %q: HTTP %s", url, response.Status)
	}

	return &cancelOnCloseReadCloser{ReadCloser: response.Body, cancel: cancel}, nil
}

func newDownloadHTTPClient() *http.Client {
	return &http.Client{
		Transport: &http.Transport{
			Proxy: http.ProxyFromEnvironment,
			DialContext: (&net.Dialer{
				Timeout:   30 * time.Second,

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Check network/DNS connectivity to the host (curl the URL to reproduce)
2. For TLS errors, verify certificates or system CA trust on the machine
3. Retry — transient network failures are common; the download is guarded by a hash check
4. If behind a proxy, configure HTTPS_PROXY so the client can reach the host

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/http.go:154 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/f3fb0b565b062de9. Report an issue: GitHub.