Checkmk Container Persistent data permission denied

Troubleshooting
1

Hi all
I’ve been trying to get this fixed for weeks now, and don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel:

running Checkmk Raw Edition 2.4.0p12 as container
Docker on Ubuntu VERSION=“24.04.3 LTS (Noble Numbat)”

my docker-compose.yml (used stack in portainer):

version: ‘3’
services:
checkmk:
image: checkmk/check-mk-raw:2.4.0-latest
container_name: checkmk5240
security_opt:

  • no-new-privileges:true
    ports:
  • “162:162/udp”
  • “514:514/udp”
  • “514:514/tcp”
  • “6557:6557/tcp”
  • “5200:5000/tcp”
  • “8000:8000/tcp”
    tmpfs:
  • /opt/omd/sites/cmk/tmp:uid=1000,gid=1000
    ulimits:
    nofile: 1024
    environment:
  • PUID=1000
  • PGID=1000
  • MAIL_RELAY_HOST=smtp.office365.com:587
  • CMK_SITE_ID=cmk
  • CMK_PASSWORD=
  • CMK_LIVESTATUS_TCP=on
  • TZ=Europe/Berlin
    volumes:
  • /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
  • ./bak:/bak
  • sites:/omd/sites
    restart: unless-stopped
    privileged: true
    volumes:
    sites:

Container runs healthy w.o. any problems and I’d expect persistent dat in volume ‘sites’ but:
deleting and recreating the container results in:

2025-09-28T07:44:48.733454665Z ### PREPARE POSTFIX (Hostname: 5ac112dcfe53, Relay host: smtp.office365.com:587)
2025-09-28T07:44:48.918159727Z ### STARTING MAIL SERVICES
2025-09-28T07:44:52.989991980Z …done.
2025-09-28T07:44:53.000332933Z Site timezone set to Europe/Berlin
2025-09-28T07:44:53.000365480Z ### STARTING XINETD
2025-09-28T07:44:53.031660682Z * Starting internet superserver xinetd
2025-09-28T07:44:53.033179685Z …done.
2025-09-28T07:44:53.033431601Z ### STARTING SITE
2025-09-28T07:44:53.497133827Z Traceback (most recent call last):
2025-09-28T07:44:53.497180722Z File “/usr/bin/omd”, line 54, in
2025-09-28T07:44:53.497196164Z omdlib.main.main()
2025-09-28T07:44:53.497201856Z File “/omd/versions/2.4.0p12.cre/lib/python3/omdlib/main.py”, line 4819, in main
2025-09-28T07:44:53.498112418Z site = _site_environment(site_name, command)
2025-09-28T07:44:53.498148078Z ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2025-09-28T07:44:53.498154274Z File “/omd/versions/2.4.0p12.cre/lib/python3/omdlib/main.py”, line 4664, in _site_environment
2025-09-28T07:44:53.498915982Z set_environment(site)
2025-09-28T07:44:53.498930497Z File “/omd/versions/2.4.0p12.cre/lib/python3/omdlib/main.py”, line 1810, in set_environment
2025-09-28T07:44:53.499347516Z with envfile.open() as opened_file:
2025-09-28T07:44:53.499361511Z ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2025-09-28T07:44:53.499367251Z File “/omd/versions/2.4.0p12.cre/lib/python3.12/pathlib.py”, line 1013, in open
2025-09-28T07:44:53.499648201Z return io.open(self, mode, buffering, encoding, errors, newline)
2025-09-28T07:44:53.499662129Z ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2025-09-28T07:44:53.499668021Z PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: ‘/omd/sites/cmk/etc/environment’

once deleting the volume ‘sites’ the recreation works… (but this isn’t the idea behind persistent, is it?)

Can anyone point me to the right direction, please?

2

What happens if you setup your docker container as described inside the manual?

3

thanks for the hint.
actually this brings me to my 2nd problem:

when using the suggested docker-compose, I get :

RROR: Failed to delete user 'cmk': userdel: group cmk not removed because it has other members.
userdel: cmk mail spool (/var/mail/cmk) not found

when removing site cmk (to restore it from a backup)
I might be wrong, but I remember this might be fixed when commenting out the tmpfs, however, it’ll generate performance warnings and/or unhealthy status in portainer.

anywa, without restoring my backup, the permission problem doesn’t seem to occure when using the suggested docker-compose from the manual.

4

next step:
after commenting out tmpfs, I could rm cmk, and restore my backup,

but since the restore, my permission denied seems to be back:

^^^^^^^
PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: ‘/omd/sites/cmk/etc/environment’

is it possible that my backup /restore is braking my system?