diff --git a/compute/compute-node.Dockerfile b/compute/compute-node.Dockerfile
index cfb3f0dae3..bdb9e0ed7f 100644
--- a/compute/compute-node.Dockerfile
+++ b/compute/compute-node.Dockerfile
@@ -1991,7 +1991,8 @@ RUN systemctl enable \
     pgbouncer \
     postgres_exporter sql_exporter sql_exporter-autoscaling \
     local_proxy \
-    compute_ctl
+    compute_ctl \
+    chown-pgdata
 
 ENTRYPOINT ["/sbin/init"]
 
diff --git a/compute/etc/systemd/system/chown-pgdata.service b/compute/etc/systemd/system/chown-pgdata.service
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..5483a06bd5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/compute/etc/systemd/system/chown-pgdata.service
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+# When running under neonvm-guest a separate disk is mounted to
+# /var/db/postgres/compute. Make it owned by the postgres user.
+[Unit]
+Description=Change owner of /var/db/postgres/compute to postgres
+
+[Service]
+Type=oneshot
+ExecStart=chown postgres:postgres /var/db/postgres/compute
+RemainAfterExit=yes
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=compute_ctl.service