For containers using random uids[1], use the higher level method getpass.getuser which as the same effect but also looks consider the environment variables to determine the user name. Details from http://blog.dscpl.com.au/2015/12/unknown-user-when-running-docker.html CLA signature for akram Closes #26452 [1] openshift or docker as explained at http://blog.dscpl.com.au/2015/12/random-user-ids-when-running-docker.html