kubernetes/kops · error

unsupported target type %q

Error message

unsupported target type %q

What it means

Run() selects an execution target from c.Target: "direct" (apply to the local node) or "dryrun" (write a dry-run manifest). Any other value hits the default branch and fails with "unsupported target type". Only these two literal strings are accepted for nodeup.

Source

Thrown at upup/pkg/fi/nodeup/command.go:374

		taskMap[key] = &nodetasks.LoadImageTask{
			Sources: image.Sources,
			Hash:    image.Hash,
		}
	}

	var target fi.NodeupTarget

	switch c.Target {
	case "direct":
		target = &local.LocalTarget{
			CacheDir: c.CacheDir,
			Cloud:    cloud,
		}
	case "dryrun":
		assetBuilder := assets.NewAssetBuilder(vfs.Context, nil, false)
		target = fi.NewNodeupDryRunTarget(assetBuilder, out)
	default:
		return fmt.Errorf("unsupported target type %q", c.Target)
	}

	context, err := fi.NewNodeupContext(ctx, target, keyStore, &bootConfig, &nodeupConfig, taskMap)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("error building context: %w", err)
	}

	var options fi.RunTasksOptions
	options.InitDefaults()

	// Return rather than exit, so that the retry loop in cmd/nodeup gets to run:
	// kops-configuration.service is Type=oneshot, so a bootstrap that exits here is never
	// retried and the node never joins the cluster.
	err = context.RunTasks(options)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("error running tasks: %w", err)
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Run nodeup with --target direct (real bootstrap) or --target dryrun (manifest only)
2. Remove any kops-style target values (terraform/cloud) — those belong to `kops update cluster`, not nodeup
3. Check wrapper scripts/env for an empty or mistyped TARGET variable
4. Use the exact lowercase strings; "dry-run" is not accepted

Example fix

// before
nodeup --target=terraform --config=/etc/kubernetes/nodeup.yaml
// after
nodeup --target=direct --config=/etc/kubernetes/nodeup.yaml

switch target {
case "direct", "dryrun":
    // ok
default:
    return fmt.Errorf("target %q not supported by nodeup; use direct|dryrun", target)
}

func validNodeupTarget(t string) bool { return t == "direct" || t == "dryrun" }

if err := nodeupCmd.Run(ctx); err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "unsupported target type") {
        log.Fatalf("fix --target flag: %v", err)
    }
    return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: nodeup is invoked with a --target (or NodeupCommand.Target) value other than "direct" or "dryrun", e.g. "node", "terraform", "cloud", or a typo like "dry-run".

Common situations: Copying --target flags from `kops update cluster` (which accepts terraform/cloud/dryrun) into nodeup; misspelling dryrun as dry-run; scripting nodeup with a variable left empty or set to a kops-style target name.

Related errors

• unable to parse argument %q as url
• too many arguments
• cannot mix --name for cluster with positional arguments
• unknown output format: %q
• must specify name of keyset promote keypair in

AI-assisted analysis of kubernetes/kops@4c8573c808 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/effd0efda563051a. Report an issue: GitHub.