kubernetes/kops · error

error reading hostname from GCE metadata: %v

Error message

error reading hostname from GCE metadata: %v

What it means

Error "error reading hostname from GCE metadata: %v" thrown in kubernetes/kops.

Source

Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/nodeup/command.go:524

			return "", fmt.Errorf("instance %s was launched with a resource-based hostname; useIPBasedNodeNames requires subnets that assign IP-based hostnames", instanceID)
		}

		localIPv4Bytes, err := vfs.Context.ReadFile("metadata://aws/meta-data/local-ipv4")
		if err != nil {
			return "", fmt.Errorf("error reading local-ipv4 from AWS metadata: %v", err)
		}
		localIPv4 := string(localIPv4Bytes)
		if net.ParseIP(localIPv4).To4() == nil {
			return "", fmt.Errorf("local-ipv4 from AWS metadata is not a valid IPv4 address: %q", localIPv4)
		}

		return awsbootstrap.PrivateDNSName(localIPv4, region), nil

	case api.CloudProviderGCE:
		// This lets us tolerate broken hostnames (i.e. systemd)
		b, err := vfs.Context.ReadFile("metadata://gce/instance/hostname")
		if err != nil {
			return "", fmt.Errorf("error reading hostname from GCE metadata: %v", err)
		}

		// We only want to use the first portion of the fully-qualified name
		// e.g. foo.c.project.internal => foo
		fullyQualified := string(b)
		bareHostname := strings.Split(fullyQualified, ".")[0]
		return bareHostname, nil
	case api.CloudProviderDO:
		vBytes, err := vfs.Context.ReadFile("metadata://digitalocean/interfaces/private/0/ipv4/address")
		if err != nil {
			return "", fmt.Errorf("error reading droplet private IP from DigitalOcean metadata: %v", err)
		}

		hostname := string(vBytes)
		if hostname == "" {
			return "", errors.New("private IP for digitalocean droplet was empty")
		}

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/nodeup/command.go:524 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/309847662ca78d99. Report an issue: GitHub.