go filesystem_error ai_generated true

filepath.Walk: open /root/.cache: permission denied

ID: go/filepath-walk-permission

Also available as: JSON · Markdown
88%Fix Rate
90%Confidence
50Evidence
2023-01-01First Seen

Version Compatibility

VersionStatusIntroducedDeprecatedNotes
1 active — — —

Root Cause

filepath.Walk or filepath.WalkDir encounters a directory or file that the process does not have read permission for. Walk stops and returns the error by default.

generic

Workarounds

  1. 92% success Use filepath.WalkDir with error handling to skip inaccessible directories 
    filepath.WalkDir(root, func(path string, d fs.DirEntry, err error) error {
    if err != nil {
        return filepath.SkipDir  // skip inaccessible directories
    }
    // process path
    return nil
})

    Sources: https://pkg.go.dev/path/filepath#WalkDir

  2. 85% success Check permissions before walking with os.Stat 
    info, err := os.Stat(dir)
if err != nil || info.Mode().Perm()&0444 == 0 {
    // skip or handle
}

    Sources: https://pkg.go.dev/os#Stat

Dead Ends

Common approaches that don't work:

  1. Run the program as root to bypass permission checks 70% fail

    Running as root is a security risk and masks the real issue — the program should handle permission errors gracefully

Error Chain

Leads to:
Preceded by:
Frequently confused with: