QuestionAccepted answer
Why do I still get a warning about "Running pip as the 'root' user" inside a Docker container?
V.D.
12 Jul 2025, 14:37 UTC
132.7K views1
I made a simple image of my python Django app in Docker, using this Dockerfile:
FROM python:3.8-slim-buster
WORKDIR /app
COPY requirements.txt requirements.txt
RUN pip install -r requirements.txt
COPY . .
CMD ["python", "manage.py", "runserver", "0.0.0.0:8000"]
And building it using:
sudo docker build -t my_app:1 .
But after building the container (on Ubuntu 20.04) I get this warning:
WARNING: Running pip as the 'root' user can result in broken permissions and conflicting behaviour with the system package manager. It is recommended to use a virtual environment instead
Why does it throw this warning if I am installing Python requirements inside my image? Can I actually break my system this way?
docker
python1 answer
Accepted answer · original discussion
markwalker_
Permalink15 Jul 2025, 00:13 UTC
The way your container is built doesn't add a user, so everything is done as root.
You could create a user and install to that users's home directory by doing something like this;
FROM python:3.8.3-alpine
RUN pip install --upgrade pip
RUN adduser -D myuser
USER myuser
WORKDIR /home/myuser
COPY --chown=myuser:myuser requirements.txt requirements.txt
RUN pip install --user -r requirements.txt
ENV PATH="/home/myuser/.local/bin:${PATH}"
COPY --chown=myuser:myuser . .
CMD ["python", "manage.py", "runserver", "0.0.0.0:8000"]
3 question comments
Use comments to ask for clarification. Post a solution as an answer.
user550701Permalink
17 Jul 2025, 09:49 UTC
"Do you understand what is causing the process to run as root?" The question is actually what is causing Pip to run as the 'root' user. It's not sudo. It's actually the docker default behavior. If you want
RUN commands not to run as root, you have to add a user in the Dockerfile.