diff --git a/repos/libports/src/app/fetchurl/component.cc b/repos/libports/src/app/fetchurl/component.cc
index 6913d7e6fd..08d51f123f 100644
--- a/repos/libports/src/app/fetchurl/component.cc
+++ b/repos/libports/src/app/fetchurl/component.cc
@@ -120,6 +120,7 @@ static int fetchurl(Genode::Xml_node config_node)
 
 		curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_VERBOSE, verbose);
 		curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_NOSIGNAL, true);
+		curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_FAILONERROR, 1L);
 
 		curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION, write_callback);
 		curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_WRITEDATA, &fd);