The error OperationalError at /admin/login/

means your SQLite database file is not writable by Django. This is common when running Django inside Docker, on Linux servers, or with incorrect file permissions.

Here’s how you can fix it:

🔎 Why it happens

1. SQLite file permissions – The db.sqlite3 file (or your DB file) is owned by a user that Django’s process cannot write to.
2. Directory permissions – SQLite needs not only write access to the file, but also to the containing directory (for temp journal files).
3. Read-only filesystem – If your server mounts /app (or wherever DB lives) as read-only, you can’t write to it.

✅ Steps to fix

1. Check where your DB is

Usually it’s in your project root:

ls -l /app/db.sqlite3

2. Fix ownership and permissions

If your Django app runs as www-data or django, grant ownership:

Replace 'www-data' with your Django run user

chown www-data:www-data /app/db.sqlite3 chown www-data:www-data /app chmod 664 /app/db.sqlite3 chmod 775 /app

3. If using Docker

Make sure your volume mount is not read-only. For example:

❌ Wrong:

yaml

volumes:

• ./app:/app:ro

✅ Correct:

yaml

volumes:

• ./app:/app:rw

4. If you’re deploying to production

SQLite is not recommended for production. Multiple processes (gunicorn, uwsgi, etc.) can cause locking issues. Switch to PostgreSQL or MySQL if this is a deployed app.

⚡ Quick test: After fixing permissions, try running:

python manage.py migrate

---

https://43.204.238.24:9443

http://43.204.238.24:8080

docker run -d --name django_db -p 3306:3306 -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=admin mysql

MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD : admin

MYSQL_DATABASE : test_db

MYSQL_USER : root

MYSQL_PASSWORD : admin

MYSQL_ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD

MYSQL_RANDOM_ROOT_PASSWORD

---

MYSQL_USER : root

MYSQL_PASSWORD : admin

MYSQL_DATABASE : test_db

CREATE DATABASE test_db;

USE test_db;

mysql -u root -p

mysql -h 172.17.0.3 -P 3306 -u root -p

---

DATABASES = { 'default': { 'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql', 'NAME': 'test_db', # your MySQL database name 'USER': 'root', # your MySQL username 'PASSWORD': 'admin', # your MySQL password 'HOST': '127.0.0.1', # or 'db' if using Docker Compose service name 'PORT': '3306', # default MySQL port 'OPTIONS': { 'init_command': "SET sql_mode='STRICT_TRANS_TABLES'", }, } }

---

docker run -d
--name django_db
-p 3306:3306
-e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=admin
-e MYSQL_DATABASE=test_db
-e MYSQL_USER=django_user
-e MYSQL_PASSWORD=django_pass
mysql

DATABASES = { 'default': { 'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql', 'NAME': 'test_db', 'USER': 'django_user', 'PASSWORD': 'django_pass', 'HOST': '127.0.0.1', 'PORT': '3306', } }

---

ubuntu@ip-172-31-3-91:~/django_docker_project$ cat Dockerfile

---------- Builder ----------

FROM python:3.12-slim AS builder

ENV PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1
PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1
PIP_NO_CACHE_DIR=1

Build tools + headers only in builder

RUN apt-get update
&& apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends
build-essential
gcc
libpq-dev
&& rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

WORKDIR /app

COPY requirements.txt /app/

Build wheels for all dependencies

RUN pip install --upgrade pip wheel
&& pip wheel --wheel-dir /wheels -r requirements.txt

If executable.sh builds assets (e.g., collectstatic/webpack), run here:

COPY . /app

RUN chmod +x ./executable.sh && ./executable.sh

and then copy only the produced artifacts in the runtime stage.

---------- Runtime ----------

FROM python:3.12-slim AS runtime

ENV PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1
PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1
PIP_NO_CACHE_DIR=1

Only runtime libs

RUN apt-get update
&& apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends
libpq5
&& rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

WORKDIR /app

Install from prebuilt wheels (no compilers in final image)

COPY --from=builder /wheels /wheels RUN pip install --no-cache-dir /wheels/*
&& rm -rf /wheels

Copy app code last for better caching

COPY --chown=10001:10001 . /app

If executable.sh only prepares runtime artifacts, keep it in builder instead.

If it must be run at runtime image, do:

RUN chmod +x ./executable.sh && ./executable.sh

RUN useradd -u 10001 -M -s /usr/sbin/nologin test

RUN chmod +x ./executable.sh && ./executable.sh

USER 10001

EXPOSE 8000 CMD ["python", "manage.py", "runserver", "0.0.0.0:8000"]

--------------- Error ------------------------

#!/bin/sh python manage.py makemigrations --noinput python manage.py migrate --noinput python manage.py collectstatic --noinput exec "$@"