How to fix libretranslate docker PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/home/libretranslate/.local/share/argos-translate'

Problem

When running the LibreTranslate Docker container, you see the following error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/app/./venv/bin/libretranslate", line 5, in <module>
    from libretranslate.main import main
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/libretranslate/__init__.py", line 2, in <module>
    from .main import main
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/libretranslate/main.py", line 5, in <module>
    from libretranslate.app import create_app
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/libretranslate/app.py", line 12, in <module>
    import argostranslatefiles
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/argostranslatefiles/__init__.py", line 1, in <module>
    from argostranslatefiles.argostranslatefiles import *
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/argostranslatefiles/argostranslatefiles.py", line 1, in <module>
    from argostranslate.translate import ITranslation
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/argostranslate/translate.py", line 10, in <module>
    from argostranslate import apis, fewshot, package, sbd, settings
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/argostranslate/package.py", line 13, in <module>
    from argostranslate import networking, settings
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/argostranslate/networking.py", line 6, in <module>
    from argostranslate.utils import error, info
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/argostranslate/utils.py", line 4, in <module>
    from argostranslate import settings
  File "/app/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/argostranslate/settings.py", line 19, in <module>
    os.makedirs(data_dir, exist_ok=True)
  File "<frozen os>", line 225, in makedirs
PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/home/libretranslate/.local/share/argos-translate'

Solution

The issue here is that you’re mounting directories from the host system into the Docker container, and the user inside the container does not have permission to write to those directories.

In order to fix this, assuming the following configuration:

services:
  libretranslate:
    image: libretranslate/libretranslate
    container_name: libretranslate
    ports:
      - "5000:5000"
    volumes:
      - ./libretranslate_data:/home/libretranslate/.local/share
      - ./libretranslate_cache:/home/libretranslate/.local/cache

create the directories and set the permissions on the host system:

mkdir -p ./libretranslate_data ./libretranslate_cache
sudo chown -R 1032:nogroup ./libretranslate_data ./libretranslate_cache