Docker pull: operation not permitted

Question

I'm getting this error when pulling some docker images (but not all):

failed to register layer: Error processing tar file(exit status 1): operation not permitted

For example: docker pull nginx works, but not docker pull redis.

I get the same result wether i run the command with a user that is part of the docker group, using sudo or as root.

If i run dockerd in debug mode i see this in the logs:

DEBU[0025] Downloaded 5233d9aed181 to tempfile /var/lib/docker/tmp/GetImageBlob023191751 
DEBU[0025] Applying tar in /var/lib/docker/overlay2/e5290b8c50d601918458c912d937a4f6d4801ecaa90afb3b729a5dc0fc405afc/diff 
DEBU[0027] Applied tar sha256:16ada34affd41b053ca08a51a3ca92a1a63379c1b04e5bbe59ef27c9af98e5c6 to e5290b8c50d601918458c912d937a4f6d4801ecaa90afb3b729a5dc0fc405afc, size: 79185732 
(...)
DEBU[0029] Applying tar in /var/lib/docker/overlay2/c5c0cfb9907a591dc57b1b7ba0e99ae48d0d7309d96d80861d499504af94b21d/diff 
DEBU[0029] Cleaning up layer c5c0cfb9907a591dc57b1b7ba0e99ae48d0d7309d96d80861d499504af94b21d: Error processing tar file(exit status 1): operation not permitted 
INFO[0029] Attempting next endpoint for pull after error: failed to register layer: Error processing tar file(exit status 1): operation not permitted 
INFO[0029] Layer sha256:938f1cd4eae26ed4fc51c37fa2f7b358418b6bd59c906119e0816ff74a934052 cleaned up 
(...)

If i run watch -n 0 "sudo ls -lt /var/lib/docker/overlay2/" while the image is pulling, i can see new folders appearing (and disappearing after it fails) and the permissions on /var/lib/docker/overlay2/ are root:root:700 so i don't think it's exactly a permission issue.

Here are some detail about the environment:

I have a proxmox running the LXC container where i'm having the issue. The container itself is running Debian 8. And here are the various versions:

$> uname -a
Linux [redacted-hostname] 4.10.15-1-pve #1 SMP PVE 4.10.15-15 (Fri, 23 Jun 2017 08:57:55 +0200) x86_64 GNU/Linux

$> docker version
Client:
 Version:      17.06.0-ce
 API version:  1.30
 Go version:   go1.8.3
 Git commit:   02c1d87
 Built:        Fri Jun 23 21:20:04 2017
 OS/Arch:      linux/amd64

Server:
 Version:      17.06.0-ce
 API version:  1.30 (minimum version 1.12)
 Go version:   go1.8.3
 Git commit:   02c1d87
 Built:        Fri Jun 23 21:18:59 2017
 OS/Arch:      linux/amd64
 Experimental: false

$>docker info
Containers: 20
 Running: 0
 Paused: 0
 Stopped: 20
Images: 28
Server Version: 17.06.0-ce
Storage Driver: overlay2
 Backing Filesystem: extfs
 Supports d_type: true
 Native Overlay Diff: false
Logging Driver: json-file
Cgroup Driver: cgroupfs
Plugins: 
 Volume: local
 Network: bridge host macvlan null overlay
 Log: awslogs fluentd gcplogs gelf journald json-file logentries splunk syslog
Swarm: inactive
Runtimes: runc
Default Runtime: runc
Init Binary: docker-init
containerd version: cfb82a876ecc11b5ca0977d1733adbe58599088a
runc version: 2d41c047c83e09a6d61d464906feb2a2f3c52aa4
init version: 949e6fa
Kernel Version: 4.10.15-1-pve
Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 8 (jessie)
OSType: linux
Architecture: x86_64
CPUs: 4
Total Memory: 7.906GiB
Name: resumed-dev
ID: EBJ6:AFVS:L3RC:ZEE7:A6ZJ:WDQE:GTIZ:RXHA:P4AQ:QJD7:H6GG:YIQB
Docker Root Dir: /var/lib/docker
Debug Mode (client): false
Debug Mode (server): true
 File Descriptors: 16
 Goroutines: 24
 System Time: 2017-08-17T14:17:07.800849127+02:00
 EventsListeners: 0
Registry: https://index.docker.io/v1/
Experimental: false
Insecure Registries:
 127.0.0.0/8
Live Restore Enabled: false

WARNING: bridge-nf-call-iptables is disabled
WARNING: bridge-nf-call-ip6tables is disabled

Answer 1

EDIT: This will be fixed by any release after December 18, 2017 of Moby via this merge. Will update again when fully incorporated into Docker.

If your container is unprivileged, this appears to be an issue with the overlay2 storage driver for Docker. This does not appear to be an issue with overlay (GitHub issue). So either utilize the overlay storage driver instead of overlay2, or make your container privileged.