Package Manager won’t start - temp directory error

Package Manager
Published

January 29, 2026

Abstract

Troubleshooting Posit Package Manager when it fails to start due to a misconfigured tmp directory

Description

On a fresh installation of Posit Package Manager, you may see an error similar to the following:

Terminal
Error running services: Error: Unable to run an executable program within the Server.TempDir='/tmp'; this directory may be mounted 'noexec': Unable to run validator /tmp/tempdir-validator-xxxxx: fork/exec /tmp/tempdir-validator-xxxxx: permission denied;

This error usually occurs when the /tmp directory is mounted as noexec.

Solution

Remount /tmp

Remount the tmp directory:

Terminal
sudo mount -o remount,exec /tmp

Then restart Package Manager:

Terminal
sudo systemctl restart rstudio-pm

Configure an alternative temporary directory

As an alternative to remounting tmp, you can specify an alternative temporary directory for Package Manager.

Create a directory and set permissions:

Terminal
mkdir /package-manager-tmp/
chmod 1777 /package-manager-tmp/

Update the Package Manager configuration to use that directory:

/etc/rstudio-pm/rstudio-pm.gcfg
[Server] 
TempDir = /package-manager-tmp/

Restart the Package Manager service:

Terminal
sudo systemctl restart rstudio-pm