# Is it possible to grant \_system user more permissions?
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-grant-system-user-more-permissions/180603
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [May 10, 2019, 5:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-grant-system-user-more-permissions/180603 "2019-05-10T17:46:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@bff](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/bff)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2019, 5:46pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-grant-system-user-more-permissions/180603/1 "2019-05-10T17:46:34Z")
Hello,
We have a plugin running in 6.4.3 that uses the node client to make a series of calls to the Elasticsearch API. When security is enabled I see the error:
org.elasticsearch.ElasticsearchSecurityException: action [indices:admin/exists] is unauthorized for user [\_system]
I have tried adding to role\_mapping the following:
superuser:
- \_system
However the client still cannot call index exists. Is it possible to change who the client runs as in a plugin or add permissions to the \_system user?
---
### Author:  [@bff](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/bff)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2019, 6:14pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-grant-system-user-more-permissions/180603/2 "2019-05-10T18:14:14Z")
I also tried to add a mapping to solve this
> "mapping1": {
> "enabled": true,
> "roles": [
> "superuser"
> ],
> "rules": {
> "field": {
> "username": "\_system"
> }
> },
> "metadata": {}
> }
but I still get the error
---
### Author:  [@bff](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/bff)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2019, 7:25pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-grant-system-user-more-permissions/180603/3 "2019-05-10T19:25:39Z")
It seems I can query the health of the index and get back a map of index names to health status. If the index name is not in the map then index does not exist. Since the \_system user has permission to query health status of an index but now query if it exists I am wondering if there is a list of what permissions the \_system user has.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [June 7, 2019, 7:25pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-it-possible-to-grant-system-user-more-permissions/180603/4 "2019-06-07T19:25:44Z")
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