kubernetes/kops · error

reading instance groups: %w

Error message

reading instance groups: %w

What it means

GetInstanceGroups lists instance groups via the Kubernetes-style clientset (InstanceGroupsFor(cluster).List) and wraps any API failure. This is a state-store/backend read failure, not a spec validation problem.

Source

Thrown at pkg/commands/toolbox_enroll.go:639

func (b *ConfigBuilder) GetInstanceGroups(ctx context.Context) (*kops.InstanceGroupList, error) {
	if b.instanceGroups != nil {
		return b.instanceGroups, nil
	}

	cluster, err := b.GetCluster(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	clientset, err := b.GetClientset(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

	instanceGroupList, err := clientset.InstanceGroupsFor(cluster).List(ctx, metav1.ListOptions{})
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("reading instance groups: %w", err)
	}

	b.instanceGroups = instanceGroupList
	return instanceGroupList, nil
}

func (b *ConfigBuilder) GetCluster(ctx context.Context) (*kops.Cluster, error) {
	if b.Cluster != nil {
		return b.Cluster, nil
	}

	if b.ClusterName == "" {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("ClusterName is missing")
	}

	clientset, err := b.GetClientset(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Verify state store access: `kops get clusters --state <store>` with the same credentials
2. Check cloud IAM/bucket permissions for the state store path
3. Retry on transient network errors to the backend
4. Inspect the wrapped root error for 403 vs timeout vs not-found specifics

Example fix

// before
igs, err := b.GetInstanceGroups(ctx)
// after
if err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("check --state store access and credentials: %w", err)
}

// reachability pre-check against the state store
if err := kopsutil.ValidateStateStore(ctx, stateStore); err != nil { return err }

func isIGListError(err error) bool {
    return err != nil && strings.Contains(err.Error(), "reading instance groups")
}

igs, err := b.GetInstanceGroups(ctx)
if isIGListError(err) {
    if isTransient(err) { return retryWithBackoff(ctx, b.GetInstanceGroups) }
    return fmt.Errorf("check state store credentials/access: %w", err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: clientset.InstanceGroupsFor(cluster).List returns an error: state store unreachable/permission denied, backend (S3/GCS/etcd-backed API) outage, or malformed cluster object preventing path resolution.

Common situations: Wrong/missing --state store credentials (S3 bucket policy, GCS IAM); offline or VPN-blocked access to the state store; corrupted state store entry for the cluster.

Related errors

• error loading NodeupConfig %q: %v
• error storing InstanceGroup: %v
• error creating cluster: %v
• building bootstrap data: %w
• error deleting node: %v

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/28ef5e038510ac3e. Report an issue: GitHub.