kubernetes/kops · error

--name is required

Error message

--name is required

What it means

RunPromoteKeypair needs a target cluster. The cobra Args validator for `kops promote keypair` reads the cluster name from rootCommand.ClusterName(true); if it is empty (no --name flag and no cluster in context/kubecfg), it fails fast with this message.

Source

Thrown at cmd/kops/promote_keypair.go:82

	ClusterName string
	Keyset      string
	KeypairID   string
}

// NewCmdPromoteKeypair returns a promote keypair command.
func NewCmdPromoteKeypair(f *util.Factory, out io.Writer) *cobra.Command {
	options := &PromoteKeypairOptions{}

	cmd := &cobra.Command{
		Use:     "keypair {KEYSET [ID] | all}",
		Short:   promoteKeypairShort,
		Long:    promoteKeypairLong,
		Example: promoteKeypairExample,
		Args: func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
			options.ClusterName = rootCommand.ClusterName(true)

			if options.ClusterName == "" {
				return fmt.Errorf("--name is required")
			}

			if len(args) == 0 {
				return fmt.Errorf("must specify name of keyset promote keypair in")
			}

			options.Keyset = args[0]

			if len(args) > 2 {
				return fmt.Errorf("can only promote to one keyset at a time")
			}
			if len(args) > 1 {
				if options.Keyset == "all" {
					return fmt.Errorf("cannot specify ID with \"all\"")
				}

				options.KeypairID = args[1]
			}

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Add --name <cluster.k8s.local> to the command
2. Export KOPS_CLUSTER_NAME or ensure the cluster name is resolvable from the current kops context
3. Check flag spelling (kops uses --name, not --cluster)
4. Run `kops get clusters` to confirm the exact cluster name

Example fix

// before
kops promote keypair all
// after
kops promote keypair all --name mycluster.k8s.local

if [ -z "$KOPS_CLUSTER_NAME" ]; then echo "usage: kops promote keypair <keyset> --name <cluster>"; exit 1; fi

When it happens

Trigger: Running `kops promote keypair <keyset>` without --name and without a cluster name set via KOPS_CLUSTER_NAME, context state, or the --name flag.

Common situations: Forgetting --name when scripting; running from a machine with no kops state store access so the cluster cannot be defaulted; typo in --name such that the flag parser ignored it.

Understand the failure class

Background: "--flag is required" and "must specify" CLI errors: how missing-required-flag validation works and how to fix it — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• unsupported output type %q
• --project cannot be empty; specify a project or omit the fla
• cannot specify --key with "all"
• cannot specify --primary with "all"
• --name is required

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/bb3ea928b43d4cbb. Report an issue: GitHub.