kubernetes/kops · error

error parsing container runtime version %q: %w

Error message

error parsing container runtime version %q: %w

What it means

Once the containerd version string is obtained from NodeupConfig.ContainerdConfig.Version, nodeup parses it with semver.ParseTolerant to drive version-dependent systemd unit generation. If the string is not a parseable semantic version, this wrapped error is returned at nodeup/pkg/model/containerd.go:166, including the offending version value and the underlying semver error via %w.

Source

Thrown at nodeup/pkg/model/containerd.go:166

			Contents: v,
			Type:     nodetasks.FileType_File,
			Mode:     new("0755"),
		}
		c.AddTask(fileTask)
	}

	// Add configuration file for easier use of crictl
	b.addCrictlConfig(c)

	var containerdVersion string
	if b.NodeupConfig.ContainerdConfig != nil {
		containerdVersion = fi.ValueOf(b.NodeupConfig.ContainerdConfig.Version)
	} else {
		return fmt.Errorf("error finding contained version")
	}
	sv, err := semver.ParseTolerant(containerdVersion)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("error parsing container runtime version %q: %w", containerdVersion, err)
	}
	c.AddTask(b.buildSystemdService(sv))

	if err := b.buildSysconfigFile(c); err != nil {
		return err
	}

	return nil
}

func (b *ContainerdBuilder) buildSystemdService(containerdVersion semver.Version) *nodetasks.Service {
	// Based on https://github.com/containerd/containerd/blob/master/containerd.service

	manifest := &systemd.Manifest{}
	manifest.Set("Unit", "Description", "containerd container runtime")
	manifest.Set("Unit", "Documentation", "https://containerd.io")
	manifest.Set("Unit", "After", "network.target dbus.service")

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Set spec.containerd.version to a valid semver string (e.g. 1.7.18) and run `kops update cluster` + rolling update
2. Use a kOps-supported containerd version from the kOps releases documented matrix
3. Remove stray prefixes/suffixes or invalid characters from the version field (bare '1.7.18' or 'v1.7.18' is tolerated, 'latest' is not)
4. Check the exact quoted value in the error message to see what string nodeup actually received

Example fix

# before (cluster.yaml)
containerd:
  version: latest
# after
containerd:
  version: 1.7.18

# Validate the version is semver-parseable before applying:
kops get cluster <name> -o yaml | yq '.spec.containerd.version' | grep -E '^(v)?[0-9]+\.[0-9]+\.[0-9]+([+.-].*)?$'

When it happens

Trigger: spec.containerd.version is set to a value semver.ParseTolerant rejects — e.g. an empty string, a URL instead of a version, something like 'latest', '1.7', 'v1..0', or a tag with invalid semver characters.

Common situations: Typos in cluster.yaml (version: latest or version: 1.7), pasting a containerd download URL into the version field, or custom controllers/automation writing malformed versions into the cluster spec.

Related errors

• unable to find any containerd binaries in assets
• error finding contained version
• error building containerd flags: %v
• building json: %w
• unable to parse version string: %q

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/74da3ed9d1b6089b. Report an issue: GitHub.