# Service start fails with chown: invalid user: \`kibana:kibana' **URL:** \ **Category:** Kibana\ **Created:** [June 21, 2018, 9:26pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/service-start-fails-with-chown-invalid-user-kibana-kibana/136939 "2018-06-21T21:26:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PD\_Wanjari](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/pd_wanjari/32/32564_2.png) [@PD\_Wanjari](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/PD_Wanjari)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 9:26pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/service-start-fails-with-chown-invalid-user-kibana-kibana/136939/1 "2018-06-21T21:26:28Z")
Installed Kibana with RPM following the instructions from here - [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/current/rpm.html](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/kibana/current/rpm.html) I am now trying to start the service using sudo service kibana start but I am getting the error - chown: invalid user: `kibana:kibana' What should I look at and what needs to be changed/fixed? Kibana as a direct command using ./bin/kibana works fine ---
**Author:** ![jbudz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jbudz/32/45922_2.png) [@jbudz](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jbudz)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2018, 2:12pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/service-start-fails-with-chown-invalid-user-kibana-kibana/136939/2 "2018-06-22T14:12:32Z")
Hey @PD_Wanjari, the rpm install scripts create a user named `kibana`. Prior to starting the server, it'll [chown](https://github.com/elastic/kibana/blob/master/src/dev/build/tasks/os_packages/service_templates/sysv/etc/init.d/kibana#L44) /var/log/kibana. This start script is located at /etc/init.d/kibana. The install script that adds the user can be referenced at [https://github.com/elastic/kibana/blob/master/src/dev/build/tasks/os\_packages/package\_scripts/post\_install.sh#L25](https://github.com/elastic/kibana/blob/master/src/dev/build/tasks/os_packages/package_scripts/post_install.sh#L25). Did anything go wrong during the installation? I'd give reinstalling a try and if there's any suspicious logs we can dig in. Alternatively if you just need to get things working, manually creating the kibana user and group and and chown -R kibana:kibana /usr/share/kibana and /var/log/kibana should help. ---
**Author:** ![PD\_Wanjari](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/pd_wanjari/32/32564_2.png) [@PD\_Wanjari](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/PD_Wanjari)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2018, 10:48pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/service-start-fails-with-chown-invalid-user-kibana-kibana/136939/3 "2018-06-22T22:48:28Z")
I did not see any errors during the installation. What is the best way to clean uninstall and install? I tried rpm -e \, but it says it's not installed. [lnx]~/workspace/elk% sudo rpm -e kibana-6.3.0-x86\_64.rpm error: package kibana-6.3.0-x86\_64.rpm is not installed ---
**Author:** ![jbudz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/jbudz/32/45922_2.png) [@jbudz](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/jbudz)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2018, 12:27am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/service-start-fails-with-chown-invalid-user-kibana-kibana/136939/4 "2018-06-23T00:27:25Z")
The installed package's service name is kibana, so something like `rpm -e kibana`. Hope that helps. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2018, 12:27am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/service-start-fails-with-chown-invalid-user-kibana-kibana/136939/5 "2018-07-21T00:27:31Z")
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