Error: command required for rootless mode with multiple IDs: exec: “newuidmap”: executable file not found in $PATH

Running the ‘distrobox create -n test command’ you may encounter following error:

Error: command required for rootless mode with multiple IDs: exec: "newuidmap": executable file not found in $PATH

The error message indicates that the command ‘newuidmap’ is required but could not be found in the system’s PATH, meaning the system couldn’t locate and execute this command.

Resolution

To resolve this error, you need to install the ‘uidmap’ package, which provides ‘newuidmap’ which is necessary for running containers in rootless mode. The installation command will depend on your Linux distribution.

On Debian/Ubuntu-based distributions

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install uidmap

On Arch-based distributions

sudo pacman -S shadow

On Red Hat/Fedora-based distributions

sudo dnf install shadow-utils

After installing the required package, retry the ‘distrobox create -n test’ command, and it should work without the previous error.

I hope this is helpful.