Resolving WSL2 Permission Denied When Connecting to Docker Daemon

Resolving WSL Permission Denied When Connecting to Docker Daemon

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If you get “permission denied while trying to connect to the Docker daemon socket” when running Docker commands in WSL, your user doesn’t have access to the Docker socket. This is the most common Docker error on WSL and takes about 30 seconds to fix.

The Error

Running docker ps or any Docker command returns:

Got permission denied while trying to connect to the Docker daemon socket at unix:///var/run/docker.sock: Get "http://%2Fvar%2Frun%2Fdocker.sock/v1.24/containers/json": dial unix /var/run/docker.sock: connect: permission denied

This happens because /var/run/docker.sock is owned by the docker group, and your user isn’t a member of that group.

Resolving WSL2 Permission Denied When Connecting to Docker Daemon

Fix 1: Enable Docker Desktop WSL Integration

If you’re using Docker Desktop on Windows (the most common setup for WSL), make sure WSL integration is enabled for your distro:

  1. Open Docker Desktop
  2. Go to Settings > Resources > WSL Integration
  3. Toggle on your Ubuntu distribution
  4. Click Apply & restart
Resolving WSL2 Permission Denied When Connecting to Docker Daemon

After Docker Desktop restarts, open a new WSL terminal and try docker ps again. If it still fails, continue to Fix 2.

Fix 2: Add Your User to the Docker Group

This is the standard fix for the WSL permission denied Docker daemon error. Add your user to the docker group so you can run Docker commands without sudo:

sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

-aG appends the docker group to your user without removing existing groups.

For the group change to take effect, restart WSL. From PowerShell or Windows Terminal:

wsl --shutdown

Reopen your WSL terminal and verify:

docker ps

If you see an empty container list (or your running containers), the fix worked.

Resolving WSL2 Permission Denied When Connecting to Docker Daemon

You can confirm your user is in the docker group with:

groups $USER

The output should include docker in the list.

Fix 3: Fix Socket Permissions (If Needed)

If you’re in the docker group but still get permission denied, the socket file itself may have wrong ownership. Reset it:

sudo chown root:docker /var/run/docker.sock
sudo chmod 660 /var/run/docker.sock

This sets the socket to be owned by root with group docker, and allows read/write access for the owner and group only.

Do not use chmod 666 on the Docker socket. That gives every user on the system full access to Docker, which is a security risk — anyone with socket access can run containers as root.

Still Not Working?

  • Docker daemon not running — if you see “Is the docker daemon running?” instead of “permission denied”, the issue is different. Make sure Docker Desktop is running on Windows, or start the Docker service with sudo service docker start if you installed Docker Engine directly in WSL.
  • Using newgrp as a temporary fix — running newgrp docker applies the group change to your current shell session without restarting WSL. Useful if you can’t restart right now.
  • WSL integration not appearing in Docker Desktop — make sure your WSL distro is version 2, not version 1. Check with wsl -l -v in PowerShell. If it shows version 1, convert it with wsl --set-version Ubuntu 2.

Conclusion

The Docker permission denied error on WSL is almost always fixed by adding your user to the docker group and restarting WSL. Once Docker is working, you can start pulling images and building containers. For Docker cleanup tips, see How to Remove All None Tag Docker Images. If you’re setting up your WSL environment, check out How to Connect Visual Studio Code with WSL 2 for Linux Ubuntu.