How to solve permission trouble when running Postgresql from minikube?

Question

I am trying to run a Postgresql database using minikube with a persistent volume claim. These are the yaml specifications:

minikube-persistent-volume.yaml:

kind: PersistentVolume
apiVersion: v1
metadata:
  name: pv0001
  labels:
    type: hostpath
spec:
  capacity:
    storage: 5Gi
  accessModes:
    - ReadWriteMany
  hostPath:
    path: "/Users/jonathan/data"

postgres-persistent-volume-claim.yaml:

apiVersion: v1
kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
metadata:
  name: pv-postgres
spec:
  accessModes: [ "ReadWriteMany" ]
  resources:
    requests:
      storage: 2Gi

postgres-deployment.yaml

apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: postgres
spec:
  replicas: 1
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: postgres
    spec:
      containers:
      - image: postgres:9.5
        name: postgres
        ports:
        - containerPort: 5432
          name: postgres
        volumeMounts:
        - mountPath: /var/lib/postgresql/data
          name: postgres-disk
        env:
        - name: PGDATA
          value: /var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata
        - name: POSTGRES_USER
          value: keycloak
        - name: POSTGRES_DATABASE
          value: keycloak
        - name: POSTGRES_PASSWORD
          value: key
        - name: POSTGRES_ROOT_PASSWORD
          value: masterkey
      volumes:
      - name: postgres-disk
        persistentVolumeClaim:
          claimName: pv-postgres

when I start this I get the following in the logs from the deployment:

[...]
fixing permissions on existing directory 
/var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata ... ok
initdb: could not create directory "/var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata/pg_xlog": Permission denied
initdb: removing contents of data directory "/var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata"

Why do I get this Permission denied error and what can I do about it?

Answer 1

Maybe you're having a write permission issue with Virtualbox mounting those host folders. Instead, use /data/postgres as a path and things will work.

Minikube automatically persists the following directories so they will be preserved even if your VM is rebooted/recreated:

• /data
• /var/lib/localkube
• /var/lib/docker

Read these sections for more details:

1. https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube#persistent-volumes
2. https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube#mounted-host-folders