kubernetes/kops · error

validation failed: %v

Error message

validation failed: %v

What it means

Wraps the top-level validation error in the `kops validate cluster` RunE: the validator returned an error (after any retries) while checking cluster health. The %v carries the underlying validation failure describing which nodes/components are unhealthy.

Source

Thrown at cmd/kops/validate_cluster.go:103

	o.interval = 10 * time.Second
	o.MaxUnreadyNodes = 0
}

func NewCmdValidateCluster(f *util.Factory, out io.Writer) *cobra.Command {
	options := &ValidateClusterOptions{}
	options.InitDefaults()

	cmd := &cobra.Command{
		Use:               "cluster [CLUSTER]",
		Short:             validateClusterShort,
		Long:              validateClusterLong,
		Example:           validateClusterExample,
		Args:              rootCommand.clusterNameArgs(&options.ClusterName),
		ValidArgsFunction: commandutils.CompleteClusterName(f, true, false),
		RunE: func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
			result, err := RunValidateCluster(cmd.Context(), f, out, options)
			if err != nil {
				return fmt.Errorf("validation failed: %v", err)
			}

			// We want the validate command to exit non-zero if validation found a problem,
			// even if we didn't really hit an error during validation.
			if len(result.Failures) != 0 {
				os.Exit(2)
			}
			return nil
		},
	}

	cmd.Flags().StringVarP(&options.output, "output", "o", options.output, "Output format. One of json|yaml|table.")
	cmd.RegisterFlagCompletionFunc("output", func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string, toComplete string) ([]string, cobra.ShellCompDirective) {
		return []string{"json", "yaml", "table"}, cobra.ShellCompDirectiveNoFileComp
	})
	cmd.Flags().DurationVar(&options.wait, "wait", options.wait, "Amount of time to wait for the cluster to become ready")
	cmd.Flags().IntVar(&options.count, "count", options.count, "Number of consecutive successful validations required")
	cmd.Flags().DurationVar(&options.interval, "interval", options.interval, "Time in duration to wait between validation attempts")

View on GitHub (pinned to 4c8573c808)

Solutions

1. Run kubectl get nodes to see unready nodes
2. Inspect failing pods with kubectl get pods -A
3. Wait for the cluster to finish provisioning and re-validate

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at cmd/kops/validate_cluster.go:103 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/f1ae9c2359dc0540. Report an issue: GitHub.