Elasticsearch throwing error

[akarsha]

I am using Elasticsearch 5.1.1 in my VM RedHat 6.8 Santiago. While trying to run elastic search, it is giving me below exception in the logs:

[2017-11-27T10:51:47,743][ERROR][o.e.b.Bootstrap ] Exception
java.lang.RuntimeException: can not run elasticsearch as root
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.initializeNatives(Bootstrap.java:100) ~[elasticsearch-5.1.1.jar:5.1.1]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.setup(Bootstrap.java:176) ~[elasticsearch-5.1.1.jar:5.1.1]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.init(Bootstrap.java:306) [elasticsearch-5.1.1.jar:5.1.1]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.init(Elasticsearch.java:121) [elasticsearch-5.1.1.jar:5.1.1]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.execute(Elasticsearch.java:112) [elasticsearch-5.1.1.jar:5.1.1]
at org.elasticsearch.cli.SettingCommand.execute(SettingCommand.java:54) [elasticsearch-5.1.1.jar:5.1.1]
at org.elasticsearch.cli.Command.mainWithoutErrorHandling(Command.java:96) [elasticsearch-5.1.1.jar:5.1.1]
at org.elasticsearch.cli.Command.main(Command.java:62) [elasticsearch-5.1.1.jar:5.1.1]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.main(Elasticsearch.java:89) [elasticsearch-5.1.1.jar:5.1.1]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.main(Elasticsearch.java:82) [elasticsearch-5.1.1.jar:5.1.1]

I have run this as a root previouly without any issues, this time i am not sure why am I getting the above. I am using rpm for installation for the ELK stack. Kindly help.

[jasontedor]

You can not run Elasticsearch as root starting in 5.0.0. You could in 2.x with a special flag, but that flag is removed. In short: stop trying to run as root.