ipfs/kubo · error

%s is not writeable by the current user

Error message

%s is not writeable by the current user

What it means

Thrown by checkWritable when the IPFS_REPO_PATH (or target repo dir) exists but the current OS user cannot create files inside it: the probe file `<dir>/test` could not be created and the OS reported a permission error. Init aborts before creating any repo data. The message names the directory so you can inspect its ownership and mode.

Source

Thrown at cmd/ipfs/kubo/init.go:186

	if !empty {
		if err := addDefaultAssets(out, repoRoot); err != nil {
			return err
		}
	}

	return pinEmptyDir(repoRoot)
}

func checkWritable(dir string) error {
	_, err := os.Stat(dir)
	if err == nil {
		// dir exists, make sure we can write to it
		testfile := filepath.Join(dir, "test")
		fi, err := os.Create(testfile)
		if err != nil {
			if os.IsPermission(err) {
				return fmt.Errorf("%s is not writeable by the current user", dir)
			}
			return fmt.Errorf("unexpected error while checking writeablility of repo root: %s", err)
		}
		fi.Close()
		return os.Remove(testfile)
	}

	if os.IsNotExist(err) {
		// dir doesn't exist, check that we can create it
		return os.Mkdir(dir, 0o775)
	}

	if os.IsPermission(err) {
		return fmt.Errorf("cannot write to %s, incorrect permissions", err)
	}

	return err
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 329838acdf)

Solutions

1. Check ownership and permissions with `ls -ld <dir>` and fix them: `sudo chown -R $(id -u):$(id -g) <dir>` or `chmod u+w <dir>`.
2. If the dir was created by a previous sudo run, remove it (`sudo rm -rf <dir>`) and re-run `ipfs init` as your normal user.
3. Point IPFS_PATH at a directory you can write to, e.g. `export IPFS_PATH=$(mktemp -d)`.
4. If the mount is read-only, remount read-write or choose a different location.

Example fix

// before
sudo ipfs init   # creates repo owned by root
// after
rm -rf ~/.ipfs   # remove root-owned repo, then run as the regular user
ipfs init

dir := os.Getenv("IPFS_PATH")
if dir == "" {
	dir = "~/.ipfs"
}
fi, err := os.Stat(dir)
if err == nil && fi.IsDir() {
	probe, perr := os.Create(filepath.Join(dir, ".write-test"))
	if perr != nil {
		log.Fatalf("repo dir %s not writable: %v", dir, perr)
	}
	probe.Close()
	os.Remove(filepath.Join(dir, ".write-test"))
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling `ipfs init` with IPFS_PATH or the default ~/.ipfs pointing at an existing directory where os.Create("<dir>/test") fails with EACCES/EPERM (e.g. dir owned by root or another user, or read-only mount).

Common situations: Running ipfs under systemd/Docker as a user different from the repo owner; IPFS_PATH pointing into /root from an unprivileged shell; a volume mounted read-only; a previous run with sudo created ~/.ipfs owned by root.

Related errors

• cannot write to %s, incorrect permissions
• serveHTTPApi: SetAPIAddr() failed: %w
• unexpected error while checking writeablility of repo root:
• init: seeding init docs failed: %s
• creating temporary file for %s: %w

AI-assisted analysis of ipfs/kubo@329838acdf (2026-09-03). Data as JSON: /api/errors/46bf3c4e4c854f14. Report an issue: GitHub.