[Solved] Docker League\Flysystem\UnableToCreateDirectory Unable to create a directory at /var/www/storage/app/public/

If you use Docker and use some volume attached to (for real, use some s3 compatible stuff for storing files) you can get this error.

League\Flysystem\UnableToCreateDirectory
Unable to create a directory at /var/www/storage/app/public/

Assuming that you tried different ways to give permissions in Dockerfile like

RUN chown -R nginx:nginx /var/www/storage/
RUN ln -s /var/www/storage/app/public/ /var/www/public/storage

or even add some RUN chmod -R 777 /var/www/storage and it still doesn’t work.

Solution

1. Create docker/entrypoint.sh
2. Replace chown, ln, chmod commands from Dockerfile with run entrypoint.sh.

docker/entrypoint.sh file:

#!/bin/sh

# Set correct permissions
chown -R nginx:nginx /var/www/storage /var/www/bootstrap/cache
chmod -R 775 /var/www/storage /var/www/bootstrap/cache

# Create storage symlink if missing
[ -L /var/www/public/storage ] || /usr/bin/php artisan storage:link

# Run services
exec "$@"

Dockerfile file:

....


# Set permissions
COPY docker/entrypoint.sh /entrypoint.sh
RUN chmod +x /entrypoint.sh
ENTRYPOINT ["/entrypoint.sh"]

...

Here’s why

• Dockerfile: chown and chmod in the Dockerfile are run during build time as root, but files may not have correct permissions for the non-root user (like nginx) at runtime, causing issues.

• Entrypoint: chown, chmod, and symlink creation in entrypoint.sh run during container startup, when the environment is fully set up, ensuring files have the correct permissions for the runtime user.

Key takeaway: Do file permission setup and symlink creation in entrypoint.sh to ensure it works in the final container runtime environment.