Docker delete container reports error: "device or resource busy"

Symptom

When try to delete container, it failed to remove and reportd below error:

Error response from daemon: driver "overlay" failed to remove root filesystem for
c9cb...0542: remove /var/lib/docker/overlay/81df...3026/merged: device or resource busy

Solution

1. Find out which process has mounted this busy mountpoint:

    /var/lib/docker/overlay/81dfae6c47d7919e91acb3947d2c2093d2e3549e16099279852796c7251d3026/merged
   
    $ sudo find /proc -maxdepth 2 -type f -name "mountinfo" -exec grep -nl 81dfae6c47d {} \;
    /proc/23512/mountinfo
    /proc/23513/mountinfo
    /proc/23610/mountinfo
    /proc/23612/mountinfo
   

2. Check what's the process according to above PID

    $ ps axf | grep 23512 | grep -v grep
    23512 ?        Ss     0:00 php-fpm: master process (/etc/php-fpm.conf)
   

3. Restart the corresponding service

    e,g: In my case, it is php-fpm processes mounted the busy mountpoint, so we need restart it
    $ sudo systemctl restart php-fpm