GCloud CLI Container as a Different User
TL;DR The key is to start the container with the HOME environment variable set to something writeable, such as /tmp/gcloud. docker run --rm -it --user 1001 -e HOME=/tmp/gcloud gcr.io/google.com/cloudsdktool/cloud-sdk Details The GCP tools automatically setup a GCP config directory which includes a log of all the commands that are run. Typically this is in ~/.config/gcloud/. Out of the box, the container has a user with UID=0 and UID=1000 root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash ... cloudsdk:x:1000:1000::/home/cloudsdk:/bin/bash Which means, if you either run it by default you end up with UID=0, which exists and has a writeable home, or you are the only user on your system, and start the container with --user 1000, you also end up with a writeable home, and everything works....