prole/docs/k3d.md

k3d notes

ArgoCD repo-server: copyutil ... Permission denied

If ArgoCD deploy appears to stall on argocd-repo-server and logs show:

copyutil /bin/cp: cannot create regular file '/var/run/argocd/argocd': Permission denied

This is usually a hostPath permission issue.

Why it happens

In k3d, hostPath volumes refer to paths on the k3d node containers' filesystems. When a manifest uses hostPath.type: DirectoryOrCreate, Kubernetes creates the directory on the node as root:root with restrictive permissions.

ArgoCD runs argocd-repo-server and its init containers as a non-root user by default, so an init container like copyutil cannot write to /var/run/argocd unless the volume path is writable.

How Knoe avoids the stall

The Knoe ArgoCD manifest includes an init-permissions initContainer (running as root) which prepares/chowns the hostPath-backed mount points before the non-root init containers run.