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I've been trying to run a PostgresSQL Docker container on my Windows machine and mounting the data volume, using the following command:

docker run -p 5432:5432 -it --volume c:\Users\me\Desktop\pg\data\:/var/lib/postgresql/data postgres:latest -e POSTGRES_USER=user POSTGRES_PASSWORD=password

However I keep getting a list of permission denied errors when the container tries to spin up:

chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_log’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_logical/mappings’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_logical/snapshots’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_logical’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_multixact/members/0000’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_multixact/members’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_multixact/offsets/0000’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_multixact/offsets’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_multixact’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_notify/0000’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_notify’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_replslot’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_serial’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_snapshots’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_stat’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_stat_tmp/db_0.stat’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_stat_tmp/db_16395.stat’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_stat_tmp/global.stat’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_stat_tmp’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_subtrans/0000’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_subtrans’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_tblspc’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_twophase’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/PG_VERSION’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_xlog/00000001000000000000000A’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_xlog/00000001000000000000000B’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_xlog/archive_status’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg_xlog’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/postgresql.auto.conf’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/postgresql.conf’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/postmaster.opts’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data/postmaster.pid’: Permission denied
chown: changing ownership of ‘/var/lib/postgresql/data’: Permission denied

Can someone point out what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks in advance.

Answers

This is known limitation in Docker for Windows. The Linux <-> Windows filesystem mapping semantics from your Windows dir to the Linux dir are imperfect because the mount is done with CIFS/SMB. One of the things that won't work is chown (changing the owner) because that cannot be mapped to your Windows filesystem.

You should probably use a named volume instead. This forum post has details: https://forums.docker.com/t/data-directory-var-lib-postgresql-data-pgdata-has-wrong-ownership/17963/24?u=friism