kubernetes/kops · error

error listing children of %s: %v

Error message

error listing children of %s: %v

What it means

listChildNames enumerates the directory entries of a VFS path to build a name list. If ReadDir fails with an error other than os.IsNotExist (which is treated as an empty list), it wraps the underlying error with the path. This is a wrapper: the real cause (permissions, network, backend failure) is in %v.

Source

Thrown at pkg/client/simple/vfsclientset/utils.go:33

*/

package vfsclientset

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"
	"os"

	"k8s.io/kops/util/pkg/vfs"
)

func listChildNames(ctx context.Context, vfsPath vfs.Path) ([]string, error) {
	children, err := vfsPath.ReadDir()
	if err != nil {
		if os.IsNotExist(err) {
			return nil, nil
		}
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("error listing children of %s: %v", vfsPath, err)
	}

	var names []string
	for _, child := range children {
		names = append(names, child.Base())
	}
	return names, nil
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Inspect the wrapped %v cause and fix the underlying VFS backend issue (credentials, permissions, network).
2. Retry the list operation if the cause is transient (throttling/5xx).
3. Verify the state-store path is a directory-like prefix and the VFS context is configured with the correct flags.

Example fix

// before
names, err := listChildNames(ctx, path) // opaque failure
// after
names, err := listChildNames(ctx, path)
if err != nil {
  klog.V(2).Infof("listing %s failed: %v; check credentials and bucket permissions", path, err)
  return err
}

// verify access before listing
if _, err := path.ReadDir(); err != nil && !os.IsNotExist(err) {
  return fmt.Errorf("state store %s not accessible: %v", path, err)
}

names, err := listChildNames(ctx, p)
if err != nil {
  var retryable = isTransient(err) // throttling, 5xx, net timeout
  if retryable { return retryWithBackoff(func() ([]string, error) { return listChildNames(ctx, p) }) }
  return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling listNames (e.g. listing instance groups or clusters) where the state-store path exists at the backend level but ReadDir fails: credentials revoked, S3 throttling, network partition, or the path being a file rather than a directory.

Common situations: Expired/misconfigured cloud credentials when listing a state store; S3 bucket policy changes; transient AWS/GCS API outages during kops get/list operations.

Related errors

• error listing %s in state store: %v
• reading existing keyset: %v
• error reading full cluster spec for %q: %v
• error listing Keysets: %v
• listing keysets: %v

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c90607a6ba84fcd4. Report an issue: GitHub.