Add your user to the docker group on Bazzite

Problem

On Bazzite (and other Fedora Atomic images), the docker group is defined in /usr/lib/group, the image-managed group database, not in /etc/group. On a fresh install the group may be missing from /etc/group, so sudo usermod -aG docker "$USER" fails with group 'docker' does not exist.

Fix

Copy the group entry from the image database into /etc/group, but only if it is not already there. The grep -q check makes the command safe to re-run. Then add your user to the group.

grep -q "^docker:" /etc/group || grep "^docker:" /usr/lib/group | sudo tee -a /etc/group > /dev/null
sudo usermod -aG docker "$USER"

Group membership is read at login, so a shell that was already open will not see the new group. Do one of the following:

• Log out and log back in (recommended, applies to every session).
• Run newgrp docker in the current terminal only. Other terminals still need a new login.

Verify that the group is active and that docker runs without sudo:

id -nG | tr ' ' '\n' | grep -qx docker && echo "docker group: ok"
docker ps

Why

Membership in the docker group is root-equivalent, because any member can start a container that mounts the host filesystem. Only add accounts you trust.