# Indexing data with document-level security - is it necessary to use 'run\_as'?
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-data-with-document-level-security-is-it-necessary-to-use-run-as/69350
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [December 17, 2016, 9:40pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-data-with-document-level-security-is-it-necessary-to-use-run-as/69350 "2016-12-17T21:40:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@baden0x1](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/baden0x1)
#### Post date: [December 17, 2016, 9:40pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-data-with-document-level-security-is-it-necessary-to-use-run-as/69350/1 "2016-12-17T21:40:08Z")
In reading through the X-Pack security-related documentation, I see that you can impersonate users while executing queries.
First what's best in setting up document-level security? Just a \_user.metadata field (hash holding custom metadata of the current authenticated user)? Can I read this hash from the user's index later, to add it to PUT requests?
In my case, a cron job will eventually be writing data to an index. While inserting data for a specific user, does this have to use the 'run\_as' mechanism or is it sufficient to populate the document's \_user.metadata field with this, to uniquely identify the user?
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### Author:  [@jaymode](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jaymode)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2017, 3:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-data-with-document-level-security-is-it-necessary-to-use-run-as/69350/2 "2017-01-03T15:19:38Z")
Hi @baden0x1,
First, I would like to apologize for your question being unanswered for so long.
In you use case, you may only need to add a field to the documents you are indexing that contains the username of the user or some other unique identifier. Once you have that, you can use a [templated role query](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/x-pack/current/field-and-document-access-control.html#templating-role-query) for your users and limit their access to the documents that match their information.
> While inserting data for a specific user, does this have to use the 'run\_as' mechanism
The `run_as` mechanism does not need to be used. Populating the document with a field is all that is needed.
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2017, 3:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/indexing-data-with-document-level-security-is-it-necessary-to-use-run-as/69350/3 "2017-01-31T15:19:38Z")
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