diff --git a/docker/Dockerfile b/docker/Dockerfile
--- a/docker/Dockerfile
+++ b/docker/Dockerfile
@@ -11,7 +11,8 @@
     memcached \
     postgresql-client \
     wait-for-it \
-    ngrep && \
+    ngrep \
+    rsync && \
   apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
     r-base-core \
     r-cran-jsonlite && \
diff --git a/docker/README.md b/docker/README.md
--- a/docker/README.md
+++ b/docker/README.md
@@ -433,21 +433,6 @@
 code). If the application you play with has autoreload support, there
 is no need to restart the impacted container.)
 
-Note: if the docker fails to start when using local sources for one or more swh
-package, it's most probably due to permission problems on cache files. For
-example, if you have executed tests locally (using pytest or tox), you have
-cache files (__pycache__ etc.) that will prevent `pip install` from working
-within the docker.
-
-The solution is to clean these files and directories before trying to spawn the
-docker.
-
-```
-~/swh-environment$ find . -type d -name __pycache__ -exec rm -rf {} \;
-~/swh-environment$ find . -type d -name .tox -exec rm -rf {} \;
-~/swh-environment$ find . -type d -name .hypothesis -exec rm -rf {} \;
-```
-
 
 ### Using locally installed swh tools with docker
 
@@ -518,11 +503,6 @@
 export COMPOSE_FILE=~/swh-environment/docker/docker-compose.yml:~/swh-environment/docker/docker-compose.override.yml
 alias doco=docker-compose
 
-function swhclean {
-    find ~/swh-environment -type d -name __pycache__ -exec rm -rf {} \;
-    find ~/swh-environment -type d -name .tox -exec rm -rf {} \;
-    find ~/swh-environment -type d -name .hypothesis -exec rm -rf {} \;
-}
 EOF
 ```
 
@@ -543,11 +523,6 @@
 - create an alias `doco` for `docker-compose` because this is way too
   long to type,
 
-- add a `swhclean` shell function to clean your source directories so that
-  there is no conflict with docker containers using local swh repositories (see
-  below). This will delete any `.tox`, `__pycache__` and `.hypothesis`
-  directory found in your swh-environment directory.
-
 So now you can easily:
 
 * Start the SWH platform:
diff --git a/docker/utils/pyutils.sh b/docker/utils/pyutils.sh
--- a/docker/utils/pyutils.sh
+++ b/docker/utils/pyutils.sh
@@ -4,9 +4,13 @@
   echo Using pip from $(which pip)
 
   if [[ -d /src ]] ; then
-    for srcrepo in /src/swh-* ; do
+    tmpdir=`mktemp -d`
+    cp -R /src/* $tmpdir/
+    rsync -a /src/ $tmpdir/ --exclude "*/__pycache__/" --exclude "*/.tox/" --exclude "*/.hypothesis/"
+    for srcrepo in $tmpdir/swh-* ; do
       pip install $srcrepo
     done
+    rm -rf $tmpdir
   fi
 
   echo Installed Python packages: