tsenart/vegeta · error

ErrNilTarget

ErrNilTarget

Error message

nil target

What it means

ErrNilTarget is returned when a Targeter yields a nil *Target pointer. The attacker requires a fully allocated Target to issue a request, so a nil pointer is rejected defensively.

Source

Thrown at lib/targets.go:93

			if len(left) != len(right) {
				return false
			}
			for i := range left {
				if left[i] != right[i] {
					return false
				}
			}
		}

		return true
	}
}

var (
	// ErrNoTargets is returned when not enough Targets are available.
	ErrNoTargets = errors.New("no targets to attack")
	// ErrNilTarget is returned when the passed Target pointer is nil.
	ErrNilTarget = errors.New("nil target")
	// ErrNoMethod is returned by JSONTargeter when a parsed Target has
	// no method.
	ErrNoMethod = errors.New("target: required method is missing")
	// ErrNoURL is returned by JSONTargeter when a parsed Target has no
	// URL.
	ErrNoURL = errors.New("target: required url is missing")
	// TargetFormats contains the canonical list of the valid target
	// format identifiers.
	TargetFormats = []string{HTTPTargetFormat, JSONTargetFormat}
)

const (
	// HTTPTargetFormat is the human readable identifier for the HTTP target format.
	HTTPTargetFormat = "http"
	// JSONTargetFormat is the human readable identifier for the JSON target format.
	JSONTargetFormat = "json"
)

View on GitHub (pinned to cf58112690)

Solutions

1. Fix the custom Targeter to allocate and populate the target: *tgt = &vegeta.Target{...} before returning nil.
2. Return a descriptive error from your Targeter instead of nil target + nil error.
3. Check for nil target inside your targeter and skip/log such entries.

Example fix

// before
func(tgt *vegeta.Target) error { return nil }
// after
func(tgt *vegeta.Target) error {
    if tgt == nil { return errors.New("nil target out-param") }
    *tgt = vegeta.Target{Method: "GET", URL: "http://localhost/"}
    return nil
}

func validTarget(t *vegeta.Target) bool {
    return t != nil && t.Method != "" && t.URL != ""
}

if t, err := targeter(&tr); err != nil {
    return err
} else if t == nil {
    return vegeta.ErrNilTarget
}

When it happens

Trigger: A custom Targeter func writing nothing into the *Target out-parameter (or returning a nil target) while returning nil error; JSON/HTTP targeters encountering nil entries in their pipelines.

Common situations: Hand-written Targeter wrappers that forget to populate the out param, decoding into a nil pointer, or test fixtures with missing entries.

Related errors

• ErrNoTargets
• ErrNoMethod
• ErrNoURL
• bad target: %s
• bad method: %s

AI-assisted analysis of tsenart/vegeta@cf58112690 (2026-08-31). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9c23a555a59fde22. Report an issue: GitHub.