Failed to get D-Bus connection: Operation not permitted

"Failed to get D-Bus connection: Operation not permitted" - systemctl command is not working in Docker container. If systemctl command is not working in your container and giving subjected error message then simple solution of this error is, create container with --privileged option and also provide init file full path /usr/sbin/init

[root@server109 ~]# docker container run -dit --privileged --name systemctl_not_working_centos1 centos:7 /usr/sbin/init

For detailed explanation and understanding I am writing more about it, please have look below.

If we have a daemon based program(httpd, sshd, jenkins, docker etc.) running inside a container and we would like to start/stop or check status of daemon inside docker then it becomes difficult for us to perform such operations , because by default systemctl and service commands don't work inside docker. Normally we run below commands to check services status in Linux systems.

[root@server109 ~]# systemctl status jenkins.service

[root@server109 ~]# service jenkins status

While I have seen multiple times that when we run same command in docker container we get "Failed to get D-Bus connection: Operation not permitted" error message and this is very common error in container world. So here I am creating this error environment and after that I'll fix this error message.

[root@server109 ~]# docker image pull centos:7

[root@server109 ~]# docker container run -dit --name systemctl_not_working_centos centos:7

[root@server109 ~]# docker container exec -it systemctl_not_working_centos bash

[root@5e1838173ad7 /]# yum install httpd -y

[root@5e1838173ad7 /]# systemctl status httpd

Failed to get D-Bus connection: Operation not permitted

You don't have to do anything till here, I have just created error environment. So now we have this error message and mean of this error message is that systemctl command is not working in your container.

So whenever you create a container and if you think that there would some requirement of systemctl command in this container then you should run below command to create a container. I've just added --privileged keywork and also provided a file /usr/sbin/init(soft link of systemd). On high level and easy to understand, you can think like, because of this file only we have systemctl command in our system.

[root@server109 ~]# docker container run -dit --privileged --name systemctl_not_working_centos1 centos:7 /usr/sbin/init

[root@server109 ~]# docker container exec -it systemctl_not_working_centos1 bash

[root@084e47eeccc6 /]# yum install sudo wget -y

[root@084e47eeccc6 /]# sudo wget -O /etc/yum.repos.d/jenkins.repo https://pkg.jenkins.io/redhat-stable/jenkins.repo

[root@084e47eeccc6 /]# sudo rpm --import https://pkg.jenkins.io/redhat-stable/jenkins.io.key

[root@084e47eeccc6 /]# yum install jenkins -y

[root@084e47eeccc6 /]# systemctl status jenkins

● jenkins.service - LSB: Jenkins Automation Server

   Loaded: loaded (/etc/rc.d/init.d/jenkins; bad; vendor preset: disabled)

   Active: inactive (dead)

     Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)

[root@084e47eeccc6 /]#

[root@084e47eeccc6 /]# systemctl status httpd

● httpd.service - The Apache HTTP Server

   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)

   Active: inactive (dead)

     Docs: man:httpd(8)

           man:apachectl(8)

Have a look on last two commands I can easily check status of httpd and jenkins. If required also can start/stop these services.