Permissions error - after declaring USER and WORKDIR

[ORESoftware]

I have this:

FROM node:9
USER node
WORKDIR /home/node/app
COPY package.json .
RUN npm install --loglevel=warn;

and I get:

Step 20/24 : RUN  npm install --loglevel=warn;
 ---> Running in 8aa9717ac2be
npm WARN checkPermissions Missing write access to /home/node/app
npm ERR! path /home/node/app
npm ERR! code EACCES
npm ERR! errno -13
npm ERR! syscall access
npm ERR! Error: EACCES: permission denied, access '/home/node/app'
npm ERR!  { Error: EACCES: permission denied, access '/home/node/app'
npm ERR!   stack: 'Error: EACCES: permission denied, access \'/home/node/app\'',
npm ERR!   errno: -13,
npm ERR!   code: 'EACCES',
npm ERR!   syscall: 'access',
npm ERR!   path: '/home/node/app' }
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Please try running this command again as root/Administrator.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /home/node/.npm/_logs/2018-05-16T17_37_34_421Z-debug.log

this seems completely crazytown. How does my user not have access to this directory by default considering it was "created" by the WORKDIR command after USER was declared?

[LaurentGoderre]

If I remember correctly, folder created by WORKDIR are owned by root even if they are created after the USER directive. Try creating the folder first

[ORESoftware]

Yeah I tried that too, I still get permissions errors with this:

RUN mkdir -p /home/node/app
WORKDIR /home/node/app

[serbanghita]

I have the same issue

[ORESoftware]

Just do this and call it a day lol

 RUN sudo chmod -R 777 /home/node/app

F it lol...just run that before and after npm install and you should be g2g. Even better, do this:

 RUN sudo chmod -R 777 /home/node

[minnam]

Correct me if I'm wrong. The doc is recommending us to declare user as node because Docker runs container as root by default.

So you declare it at the end

FROM node:9
WORKDIR /home/node/app
COPY package.json .
RUN npm install --loglevel=warn;
USER node

[serbanghita]

You should not run node as root, bad things can happen (see the last issue with changing files permissions).
I think you need to make sure that when the node user is created it has the right permissions over /home/node (eg. https://github.com/vvo/selenium-standalone/blob/master/Dockerfile#L29). Maybe the permissions are not well propagated to subsequent directories:

@ORESoftware do a docker exec ls -al /home/node/app and check who owns that?

[albertoantunes]

@ORESoftware i believe this issue happens because only the /home/node directory is owned by the node user in the default node image. The /app directory is created and owned by root. If you change the WORKDIR to /home/node it should work.

[0xDones]

@albertoantunes You are right, it worked for me. Here is my Dockerfile, hope it helps some with the same problem.

FROM node:8
USER node
ENV NPM_CONFIG_PREFIX=/home/node/.npm-global
ENV PATH=$PATH:/home/node/.npm-global/bin
WORKDIR /home/node
COPY package.json .
RUN npm install --only=prod
COPY . .

[samson-sham]

This has been a nightmare for me...
Can this be documented as what the Best Practice is suggesting to use USER node but doesn't provide a viable config?

[Maxime1991]

@ORESoftware
I had the same issue, you can specify the user with the COPY command. See my Dockerfile:

FROM node:latest
USER node

ARG APP=app
ARG HOME=/home/node

ENV NPM_CONFIG_PREFIX=$HOME/.npm-global
ENV PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.npm-global/bin

COPY --chown=node:node ./$APP/package*.json $HOME/$APP/

The COPY is done by default with root (source):

All new files and directories are created with a UID and GID of 0, unless the optional --chown flag specifies a given username, groupname, or UID/GID combination to request specific ownership of the copied content.

Note that COPY --chown won't work with all docker versions (see here). Mine is 18.03.1-ce.

[christyjacob4]

I had the same issue and here's my Dockerfile. This fixed it

#Choose the base image for the build
FROM node:8-alpine
RUN mkdir -p /home/node/app && chown -R node:node /home/node/app
WORKDIR /home/node/app
COPY package*.json ./
USER node
RUN npm install
COPY --chown=node:node . .
RUN ["chmod", "755", "your-script.sh"]
EXPOSE 4140
CMD [ "node", "index.js" ]

The trick was to use

RUN ["chmod", "755", "your-script.sh"]

[GeorgeKagan]

This worked for me.
A combination of using the existing /home/node dir to host the app files and specifying the user and group for the COPY commands.

FROM node:12.10.0-slim

USER node
RUN mkdir -p /home/node/app
WORKDIR /home/node/app

COPY --chown=node:node package.json .
COPY --chown=node:node yarn.lock .

RUN yarn --pure-lockfile

COPY --chown=node:node . .

EXPOSE 4040

CMD [ "node", "index.js" ]

[derhecht]

another working approach: start docker run with
-e npm_config_cache=/path/to/cache
and setup the folder e.g. in working dir

then I could use non-root user + get npm install working as it does not try to create a /.npm folder

[antonovicha]

I had a problem of creating files / directories while node app is running (logs directory for example, when I don't care about them and do not mount logs dir from host). Here is my solution:

RUN chown node:node /usr/src/app
USER node
CMD ["npm", "start"]

That way app can create new files / directories inside of /usr/src/app. All other files/dirs are owned by root, and can not be modified by app (totally fine for me).