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Fix: Permission Denied Error in Docker Compose Volumes

Read Time: 4 min Updated: 2026-07-27

Quick Diagnostics

The io.containerd.runc.v2: OCI runtime create failed: permission denied error or internal failures where a container (such as Nginx, Plex, or an indexer) cannot save its configuration occur because the internal user of the container does not have Linux file system permissions to write to the host folder mounted in the volumes: section.

🚀 Step-by-Step Solution

Step 1: Find the UID and GID of the container

Many containers allow you to specify which system user they should run as using environment variables in the docker-compose.yml file. Check the container's documentation for the PUID and PGID variables.

Step 2: Identify your local user

In your server's terminal, execute the command to view the identifier of your current user:

BASH 
id

You will see something like uid=1000(rodolfo) gid=1000(rodolfo). Take note of those numbers.

Step 3: Fix the folder permissions on the Host

If you mounted a local folder to ./config, you must assign ownership to the correct user of your Linux system so that Docker can interact with it:

BASH 
# Change owner to user 1000
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 ./config

# Ensure standard read and write permissions
sudo chmod -R 755 ./config

Step 4: Restart the container

Apply a forced restart so that the Docker daemon applies the new disk configuration:

BASH 
docker compose down && docker compose up -d

Prevention Advice

Recommended security practices:

  • Never use chmod 777 globally to solve Docker issues. Giving global write and execute permissions to anyone exposes your server, allowing any compromised process to modify root files on your operating system.