# 503 license not available--security **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Tags:** elastic-stack-security\ **Created:** [February 21, 2021, 12:10am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/503-license-not-available-security/264966 "2021-02-21T00:10:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![John\_McDonnell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/john_mcdonnell/32/83901_2.png) [@John\_McDonnell](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/John_McDonnell)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2021, 12:10am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/503-license-not-available-security/264966/1 "2021-02-21T00:10:05Z")
Okay, I'm confused. Numerous elastic blogs now suggest that security features are available with the basic license, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to check out the features in my home lab. But, when I follow the instructions to enable security, the result is a 503 error, "License not available." Is it possible to enable security with the basic license? Although my work environment is exploring gold and platinum, that's not really a practical option in my 3 VM home setup. ---
**Author:** ![stephenb](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/stephenb/32/40856_2.png) [@stephenb](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/stephenb)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2021, 12:30am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/503-license-not-available-security/264966/2 "2021-02-21T00:30:48Z")
Yes you can absolutely enable basic authentication and TLS with Basic License / default distribution. Which guide are you following? Hopefully [this](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/configuring-security.html) one Can you provide a little more detail how you installed etc? What Version? Did you install the default / basic distribution? Where is that message coming from? [Here](https://github.com/bvader/howtos/blob/master/basic-security-elasticsearch/README.md) is a little abridged version for a single node setup that I wrote. ---
**Author:** ![John\_McDonnell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/john_mcdonnell/32/83901_2.png) [@John\_McDonnell](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/John_McDonnell)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2021, 10:40pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/503-license-not-available-security/264966/3 "2021-02-21T22:40:11Z")
Well, I'm a little embarrassed to report that I was using the first guide you referenced, but didn't read it carefully enough and hadn't completed all the steps. However, the reassurance that what I was doing should work told me that I had probably missed something. Thanks! I am currently using 7.11 and have it "sort of" working with security. But, I found later in the Elastic tutorial (Assign Roles page) that when it instructs how to create the metricbeat\_writer role that the "Logstash Internal User" will use, I'm not seeing "manage\_index\_templates" as a an available privilege. After guessing at which ones to use (without success), I temporarily just gave the Logstash user all privileges, which of course is a terrible security practice, but got it working. ---
**Author:** ![John\_McDonnell](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/john_mcdonnell/32/83901_2.png) [@John\_McDonnell](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/John_McDonnell)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2021, 5:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/503-license-not-available-security/264966/4 "2021-02-28T17:33:42Z")
And, I figured out that that "manage\_index\_templates is actually a cluster privilege, not an index privilege. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2021, 5:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/503-license-not-available-security/264966/5 "2021-03-28T17:33:58Z")
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