kubernetes/kops · error

error retrieving subnet: %v

Error message

error retrieving subnet: %v

What it means

getSubnet fetches a single Neutron subnet by ID inside a RetryWithBackoff loop. If subnets.Get(...).Extract() fails, the error is wrapped as "error retrieving subnet: %v". Note the OpenStack SDK returns 404 for a missing subnet, which usually surfaces here as a wrapped gophercloud ErrResourceNotFound.

Source

Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/cloudup/openstack/subnet.go:67

	if err != nil {
		return s, err
	} else if done {
		return s, nil
	} else {
		return s, wait.ErrWaitTimeout
	}
}

func (c *openstackCloud) GetSubnet(subnetID string) (*subnets.Subnet, error) {
	return getSubnet(c, subnetID)
}

func getSubnet(c OpenstackCloud, subnetID string) (*subnets.Subnet, error) {
	var subnet *subnets.Subnet
	done, err := vfs.RetryWithBackoff(readBackoff, func() (bool, error) {
		sub, err := subnets.Get(context.TODO(), c.NetworkingClient(), subnetID).Extract()
		if err != nil {
			return false, fmt.Errorf("error retrieving subnet: %v", err)
		}
		subnet = sub
		return true, nil
	})
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	} else if done {
		return subnet, nil
	} else {
		return nil, wait.ErrWaitTimeout
	}
}

func (c *openstackCloud) CreateSubnet(opt subnets.CreateOptsBuilder) (*subnets.Subnet, error) {
	return createSubnet(c, opt)
}

func createSubnet(c OpenstackCloud, opt subnets.CreateOptsBuilder) (*subnets.Subnet, error) {

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Verify the subnet UUID exists: `openstack subnet show <subnetID>` in the same project/region
2. Correct the subnet ID in the kops cluster spec if it was deleted or mistyped
3. Check RBAC policy if the error is 403
4. Re-authenticate if the wrapped error is 401

func subnetExists(subnetID string) error {
	if _, err := exec.Command("openstack", "subnet", "show", subnetID).Output(); err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("subnet %s not found in project/region", subnetID)
	}
	return nil
}

func isNotFoundErr(err error) bool {
	var nf gophercloud.ErrResourceNotFound
	return errors.As(err, &nf)
}

sub, err := getSubnet(cloud, id)
if err != nil {
	if isNotFoundErr(err) {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("subnet %q does not exist; fix cluster spec", id)
	}
	return nil, err
}

When it happens

Trigger: The subnet ID passed does not exist (deleted out-of-band, wrong region/project), the token lacks read access to the subnet, or Neutron is unreachable.

Common situations: Cluster config referencing a subnet deleted manually, cross-project/cross-region subnet reference, expired credentials, or a typo in the subnet UUID in the cluster spec.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Could not be found', 'does not exist', 'not found in database': the resource-not-found family when an ID, slug, key, or URI lookup comes back empty — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• error retrieving subnet with id %s: %v
• error listing subnets in network %q: %v
• error retrieving network with id %s: %v
• error listing subnets: %v
• error extracting subnets from pages: %v

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1c4a5d10aa6f880e. Report an issue: GitHub.