dgraph-io/dgraph · error

error while creating temporary directory: %s

Error message

error while creating temporary directory: %s

What it means

collectDebugInfo fails to create the temporary directory under /tmp via os.MkdirTemp. This is the OS rejecting the temp-dir creation (permissions, disk space, missing /tmp), surfaced with the underlying error text.

Source

Thrown at dgraph/cmd/debuginfo/run.go:99

	flags.StringVarP(&debugInfoCmd.alphaAddr, "alpha", "a", "localhost:8080",
		"Address of running dgraph alpha.")
	flags.StringVarP(&debugInfoCmd.zeroAddr, "zero", "z", "", "Address of running dgraph zero.")
	flags.StringVarP(&debugInfoCmd.directory, "directory", "d", "",
		"Directory to write the debug info into.")
	flags.BoolVarP(&debugInfoCmd.archive, "archive", "x", true,
		"Whether to archive the generated report")
	flags.Uint32VarP(&debugInfoCmd.seconds, "seconds", "s", 30,
		"Duration for time-based metric collection.")
	flags.StringSliceVarP(&debugInfoCmd.metricTypes, "metrics", "m", metricList,
		"List of metrics & profile to dump in the report.")

}

func collectDebugInfo() (err error) {
	if debugInfoCmd.directory == "" {
		debugInfoCmd.directory, err = os.MkdirTemp("/tmp", "dgraph-debuginfo")
		if err != nil {
			return fmt.Errorf("error while creating temporary directory: %s", err)
		}
	} else {
		err = os.MkdirAll(debugInfoCmd.directory, 0644)
		if err != nil {
			return err
		}
	}
	glog.Infof("using directory %s for debug info dump.", debugInfoCmd.directory)

	collectDebug()

	if debugInfoCmd.archive {
		return archiveDebugInfo()
	}
	return nil
}

func collectDebug() {

View on GitHub (pinned to 759e242be6)

Solutions

1. Read the wrapped OS error for the exact cause (permission denied / no space left / read-only).
2. Pass an explicit writable directory: dgraph debuginfo --directory /var/tmp/dgraph-debug.
3. Free disk space or fix /tmp permissions (chmod 1777 /tmp) if that is the cause.
4. Run the command as a user with write access to the chosen directory.

Example fix

// before
dgraph debuginfo                      # fails on read-only /tmp
// after
dgraph debuginfo --directory /var/tmp/dgraph-debuginfo

info, err := os.Stat("/tmp")
if err != nil || !info.IsDir() {
    return fmt.Errorf("/tmp unavailable: %v", err)
}
if err := unix.Access("/tmp", unix.W_OK); err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("/tmp not writable: %v", err)
}

if err := collectDebugInfo(); err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "temporary directory") {
        // fallback to an explicit directory
        cmd.Flags().Set("directory", "/var/tmp/dgraph-debug")
    }
    return err
}

When it happens

Trigger: Running `dgraph debuginfo` without --directory when /tmp is not writable, full, or mounted noexec/no-write (e.g. hardened containers, read-only rootfs).

Common situations: Containers running as non-root with restricted /tmp, disk-full nodes during incident debugging, security profiles (PSP/SELinux) blocking /tmp writes.

Related errors

• error while creating debug file: %s
• server response: %s - %s
• server response: %s
• error while archiving debuginfo directory: %s
• p directory does not exist for group [%d]: [%s]

AI-assisted analysis of dgraph-io/dgraph@759e242be6 (2026-09-01). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3d6fc787e2f0f0de. Report an issue: GitHub.