# Elasticsearch permissions

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-permissions/136415>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [June 19, 2018, 5:36am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-permissions/136415 "2018-06-19T05:36:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Julian\_Daly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b38774/32.png) [@Julian\_Daly](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Julian_Daly)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 5:36am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-permissions/136415/1 "2018-06-19T05:36:14Z")

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Hallo,

It is not too clear for me... should elasticsearch be starting with root or with a user that has sudo rights?  
Should the user elasticsearch be used ?

thank you

Julian

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**Author:** ![TimV](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/timv/32/13162_2.png) [@TimV](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/TimV)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 5:49am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-permissions/136415/2 "2018-06-19T05:49:43Z")

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You cannot run Elasticsearch as root - we have checks in place to prevent that.

If you installed from an OS package (rpm, deb, etc) then you should run as the `elasticsearch` user.  
If you performed an archive install (zip, tgz) then you will need to create an appropriate user to run Elasticsearch.

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**Author:** ![Julian\_Daly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b38774/32.png) [@Julian\_Daly](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Julian_Daly)\
**Post date:** [June 19, 2018, 6:11am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-permissions/136415/3 "2018-06-19T06:11:03Z")

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Thank you Tim ... that clarifies it  
Those checks do not seem to work as I have been able to start elasticsearch continuously without a problem.  
Now I need to do some readjustments 😄

I was actually starting it with sudo -H -u elasticsearch but was getting errors on folders, with permisison denied. folders owned with root root.  
Should these folder permissions be elasticsearch root ?  
/usr/share/elasticsearch/logs/elasticsearch\_index\_indexing\_slowlog.log (Permission denied)  
is an example.

thanks again  
Julian

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 6:11am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticsearch-permissions/136415/4 "2018-07-17T06:11:06Z")

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