diff --git a/infrastructure/vault/manifests/raft-snapshot-cronjob.yaml b/infrastructure/vault/manifests/raft-snapshot-cronjob.yaml
index 3a8da9a..6a3d5cc 100644
--- a/infrastructure/vault/manifests/raft-snapshot-cronjob.yaml
+++ b/infrastructure/vault/manifests/raft-snapshot-cronjob.yaml
@@ -87,7 +87,12 @@ data:
     kubectl -n vault exec "$LEADER_POD" -- rm -f "/tmp/${SNAP_NAME}"
 
     echo "==> Installing mc (MinIO client)..."
-    curl -sf https://dl.min.io/client/mc/release/linux-amd64/mc -o /tmp/mc
+    # -L is required - dl.min.io redirects, and without it curl silently
+    # saves the redirect response body (a small HTML/text page) as "mc"
+    # instead of the actual binary, which then fails at runtime with a
+    # confusing "line N: <word>: No such file or directory" (bash trying
+    # to interpret it as a script). Confirmed live 2026-08-18.
+    curl -fsSL https://dl.min.io/client/mc/release/linux-amd64/mc -o /tmp/mc
     chmod +x /tmp/mc
     export MC_CONFIG_DIR=/tmp/.mc
     /tmp/mc alias set vps-minio "http://${VPS_MINIO_ENDPOINT}" \