Cannot start elasticsearch with the root user

Elastic Stack Elasticsearch
1

Have you seen that when you start the cluster it says you cannot start with the root user but then you change the /usr/share/elasticsearch and elasticsearch data directory ownership to the elasticsearch user and still the same?

2

you need to provide some more detail about output you getting.

I am starting elasticsearch as root and it is working

3

You should never ever run Elasticsearch as root and I believe this should be checked on startup if you are in production mode and fail if you are starting as root.

4 
at org.elasticsearch.cli.Command.mainWithoutErrorHandling(Command.java:127) ~[elasticsearch-cli-7.10.2.jar:7.10.2]
	at org.elasticsearch.cli.Command.main(Command.java:90) ~[elasticsearch-cli-7.10.2.jar:7.10.2]
	at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.main(Elasticsearch.java:126) ~[elasticsearch-7.10.2.jar:7.10.2]
	at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.main(Elasticsearch.java:92) ~[elasticsearch-7.10.2.jar:7.10.2]
Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: can not run elasticsearch as root
	at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.initializeNatives(Bootstrap.java:111) ~[elasticsearch-7.10.2.jar:7.10.2]
	at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.setup(Bootstrap.java:178) ~[elasticsearch-7.10.2.jar:7.10.2]
	at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.init(Bootstrap.java:393) ~[elasticsearch-7.10.2.jar:7.10.2]
	at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.init(Elasticsearch.java:170) ~[elasticsearch-7.10.2.jar:7.10.2]
5

Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: can not run elasticsearch as root

This error message indicates that Elasticsearch is checking whether you are running as root and refusing to start as this is the case.

6

This is the only box I'm seeing this error. The others are running as root and this is not happening.

7

Are the nodes in a cluster or running as standalone nodes? Can you show us the process listing from one of the other nodes together with the node configuration?

It looks like you are running a quite old version that is EOL. Do you have any thirdparty plugins installed that may affect this behaviour? Are there any configuration differences between the nodes?

8

@Christian_Dahlqvist thanks for your reply. This is a single-node cluster

9

let me correct my self.

I am starting up daemon as root.
but process is running as user elasticsearch

1 Like
10

Elasticsearch will never run as root. It has inbuilt checks to only run as a non-root user and it will refuse to run otherwise, there's no way around this.

11

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