Running '/usr/share/logstash/bin/logstash' as root works perfectly but obviously is not the recommended long term mode of use.
So, I did:
chown -R logstash:logstash conf.d
chmod -R 775 /usr/share/logstash/data
sudo usermod -a -G logstash myself
and tried to run logstash as myself.
But even after that I still receive:
Path "/usr/share/logstash/data" must be a writable directory. It is not writable.
In an earlier post here it is suggested to:
chmod -R 777 /usr/share/logstash/data
But isn't this compromising security? What is the point of giving /usr/share/logstash/data a user and group if it is world-writable?
Is there a better way to accomplish running logstash as a different user (belonging to the logstash group)?