I'm getting the same error with the same versions of everything mentioned above. I noticed that brew updated the current version of eksctl to 0.153, so I updated, yet the error persists.

I'm less familiar with Windows, but I attempted creating a cluster using the following settings:
kubectl version 1.28.0
eksctl version: 0.153.0
OS: Windows 10 Pro, version: 22H2, build: 19045.3324

Errors were similar:
parsing kubectl version string (upstream error: usage: aws [options] [ ...] [parameters]...
.
.
Unable to connect to the server: getting credentials: exec: executable aws failed with exit code 2
) / "0.0.0": Version string empty

I think the error comes from [1].

clientVersion, _, ignoredErr := kubectl.GetVersionInfo(ktl)

Here, it try to get clientVersion from [2], where you can see GetVersionInfo() will invoke kubectl version directly, but the behaviour changed after v1.28.0+.

For kubectl v1.27.4

% ./kubectl-v127 version --client 2>/dev/null
Client Version: version.Info{Major:"1", Minor:"27", GitVersion:"v1.27.4", GitCommit:"fa3d7990104d7c1f16943a67f11b154b71f6a132", GitTreeState:"clean", BuildDate:"2023-07-19T12:20:54Z", GoVersion:"go1.20.6", Compiler:"gc", Platform:"darwin/amd64"}
Kustomize Version: v5.0.1

For kubectl v1.28.0

% ./kubectl-v127 version --client 2>/dev/null
Client Version: v1.28.0
Kustomize Version: v5.0.4-0.20230601165947-6ce0bf390ce3

Ref code blocks:

• [1] https://github.com/eksctl-io/eksctl/blob/v0.153.0/pkg/utils/kubectl/kubectl.go#L25-L51
• [2] https://github.com/weaveworks/launcher/blob/main/pkg/kubectl/kubectl.go#L123-L145

Possible solution to the issue:

Rewrite the logic of kubectl.GetVersionInfo(ktl) to make it compatible with new/old version by changing the command to kubectl version --output json just like we have done before at #5280

I believe it should only affect users who use kubectl 1.28.0+, where you may find the change at upstream PR below.

• Remove long/golang version information making short the default kubernetes/kubernetes#116720

The quickest way to resolve this issue for now is to downgrade your kubectl to version below v1.28.0.

For example, if you are macOS user, you may backup original kubectl and replace it with the old one.

$ mv -vf $(which kubectl) ./kubectl.orig

$ curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/v1.27.4/bin/darwin/amd64/kubectl"

$ chmod +x ./kubectl

$ ./kubectl version # make sure you download version below v1.28.0

$ mv -v ./kubectl $(which kubectl)

• https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/tools/#kubectl

Thanks a lot for investigating this issue @guessi! 🔥 We'll look for a solution internally based on your insights.

I am having the same issue on windows 11 running latest eksctl and kubectl