Startup Error: Can not run elasticsearch as root

LowkiGG · September 28, 2020, 5:42am

Hello,

i am running my Camunda Engine on an VM Ubuntu Server with OpenJDK 11 installed.

Now i am trying to start Camunda Optimize with the command
sudo ./optimize-demo.sh

But i always get this as response:

The log file says:
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM warning: Option UseConcMarkSweepGC was deprecated in version 9.0 and will likely be removed in a future release.
[2020-09-28T05:30:24,351][WARN ][o.e.b.ElasticsearchUncaughtExceptionHandler] [swpkss20] uncaught exception in thread [main]
org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.StartupException: java.lang.RuntimeException: can not run elasticsearch as root
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.init(Elasticsearch.java:163) ~[elasticsearch-7.0.0.jar:7.0.0]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.execute(Elasticsearch.java:150) ~[elasticsearch-7.0.0.jar:7.0.0]
at org.elasticsearch.cli.EnvironmentAwareCommand.execute(EnvironmentAwareCommand.java:86) ~[elasticsearch-7.0.0.jar:7.0.0]
at org.elasticsearch.cli.Command.mainWithoutErrorHandling(Command.java:124) ~[elasticsearch-cli-7.0.0.jar:7.0.0]
at org.elasticsearch.cli.Command.main(Command.java:90) ~[elasticsearch-cli-7.0.0.jar:7.0.0]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.main(Elasticsearch.java:115) ~[elasticsearch-7.0.0.jar:7.0.0]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.main(Elasticsearch.java:92) ~[elasticsearch-7.0.0.jar:7.0.0]
Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: can not run elasticsearch as root
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.initializeNatives(Bootstrap.java:102) ~[elasticsearch-7.0.0.jar:7.0.0]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.setup(Bootstrap.java:169) ~[elasticsearch-7.0.0.jar:7.0.0]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.init(Bootstrap.java:325) ~[elasticsearch-7.0.0.jar:7.0.0]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.init(Elasticsearch.java:159) ~[elasticsearch-7.0.0.jar:7.0.0]
… 6 more

The user i am logged in with is not root, but has root permissions with sudo.

Does anyone have an idea what can cause this error and how to solve this? When i start camunda optimize on my local machine everything works just finde.

Thank you!

Kind regards.

aravindhrs · September 28, 2020, 6:15am

@LowkiGG, As per ES code:

github.com

elastic/elasticsearch/blob/93de1ed6068e8e9f35897f623efe00aa3cfafeea/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/bootstrap/Bootstrap.java#L89


        }
    });
}

/** initialize native resources */
public static void initializeNatives(Path tmpFile, boolean mlockAll, boolean seccomp, boolean ctrlHandler) {
    final ESLogger logger = Loggers.getLogger(Bootstrap.class);

    // check if the user is running as root, and bail
    if (Natives.definitelyRunningAsRoot()) {
        if (Boolean.parseBoolean(System.getProperty("es.insecure.allow.root"))) {
            logger.warn("running as ROOT user. this is a bad idea!");
        } else {
            throw new RuntimeException("don't run elasticsearch as root.");
        }
    }

    // enable secure computing mode
    if (seccomp) {
        Natives.trySeccomp(tmpFile);
    }

So by enabling the property es.insecure.allow.root you can run ES as root user.

bin/elasticsearch -Des.insecure.allow.root=true

LowkiGG · September 28, 2020, 8:50am

@aravindhrs Thank you for your help!

It seems like i dont get the right place to enable this property.
I found a /bin/elasticsearch in camunda-optimize-3.1.0-demo/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-7.0.0.

I added the property in this way in the /bin/elasticsearch file:

But this does not work. I still get the same error.
Can you please tell me where i have to enable it correctly?

Thank you!

LowkiGG · September 29, 2020, 1:20pm

No try with enabling this worked. But the solution for me was to take the ownership of this folder with my user, to set the JAVA_HOME anf PATH Variable and to do ./elasticsearch -d within the bin folder of elasticsearch.

It works now.

Thanks for your Help!