Development environment troubleshooting

Cannot connect to the Docker daemon

If you get an error that looks like this when trying to run docker commands:

Cannot connect to the Docker daemon. Is the docker daemon running on this host?
Error: failed to start containers: postgres

it could be because you don’t have permission to access the Unix socket that the docker daemon is bound to. On some operating systems (e.g. Linux) you need to either:

• Take additional steps during Docker installation to give your Unix user access to the Docker daemon’s port (consult the installation instructions for your operating system on the Docker website), or
• Prefix all docker commands with sudo.

pyenv errors on macOS

pyenv install commands might fail on macOS with error messages such as:

• “symbol(s) not found for architecture x86_64”
• “ERROR: The Python zlib extension was not compiled. Missing the zlib?”

Read pyenv’s Common Build Problems page for the solutions to these.