diff --git a/.circleci/config.yml b/.circleci/config.yml
index 9622dee55..0d5bfd9b8 100644
--- a/.circleci/config.yml
+++ b/.circleci/config.yml
@@ -60,6 +60,7 @@ jobs:
   debian-9: &DEBIAN
     docker:
       - image: "tahoelafsci/debian:9"
+        user: "nobody"
 
     environment: &UTF_8_ENVIRONMENT
       # Tell Hypothesis which configuration we want it to use.
@@ -84,14 +85,10 @@ jobs:
 
     steps:
       - "checkout"
-      - run:
-          name: "Fix permissions"
-          command: |
-            chown --recursive nobody:nogroup /tmp/project
       - run: &SETUP_VIRTUALENV
           name: "Setup virtualenv"
           command: |
-            sudo --set-home -u nobody /tmp/project/.circleci/setup-virtualenv.sh \
+            /tmp/project/.circleci/setup-virtualenv.sh \
                 "/tmp/venv" \
                 "/tmp/project" \
                 "${WHEELHOUSE_PATH}" \
diff --git a/.circleci/run-tests.sh b/.circleci/run-tests.sh
index 797dd8ab1..09cf7c80a 100755
--- a/.circleci/run-tests.sh
+++ b/.circleci/run-tests.sh
@@ -47,13 +47,11 @@ fi
 #
 # Send the output directly to a file because transporting the binary subunit2
 # via tox and then scraping it out is hideous and failure prone.
-sudo \
-    SUBUNITREPORTER_OUTPUT_PATH="${SUBUNIT2}" \
-    TAHOE_LAFS_TRIAL_ARGS="--reporter=subunitv2-file --rterrors" \
-    PIP_NO_INDEX="1" \
-    --set-home \
-    --user nobody \
-    ${BOOTSTRAP_VENV}/bin/tox \
+export SUBUNITREPORTER_OUTPUT_PATH="${SUBUNIT2}"
+export TAHOE_LAFS_TRIAL_ARGS="--reporter=subunitv2-file --rterrors"
+export PIP_NO_INDEX="1"
+
+${BOOTSTRAP_VENV}/bin/tox \
     -c ${PROJECT_ROOT}/tox.ini \
     --workdir /tmp/tahoe-lafs.tox \
     -e "${TAHOE_LAFS_TOX_ENVIRONMENT}" \