Users and permissions prerequisites

The following users and permissions are required:

To prepare your environment: A user with sudo permissions, such as the ubuntu user provided on Ubuntu.
To install ECE: A user with a UID and GID greater than or equal to 1000 who is part of the docker group. You must not install ECE as the root user.

You can find out information about a user with the id command:

		id
uid=1000(elastic) gid=1000(elastic) groups=1000(elastic),
4(adm),20(dialout),24(cdrom),25(floppy),
27(sudo),29(audio),30(dip),44(video),
46(plugdev),102(netdev),112(libvirtd),1001(docker)
		
	

In this example, the user elastic with a UID and GID of 1000 belongs to both the sudo and the docker groups.

ECE service containers run as root

While the ECE installer user must be non-root (UID ≥ 1000), the ECE service containers run as root (UID 0) internally. This is an architectural requirement. Elastic Stack containers run as a non-root user (UID ≥ 1000).

Once ECE is installed on a host, all host users have access to the Docker daemon, which is equivalent to root access. Limit host logins to users you trust with that level of control.

Note

For ECE installation with Podman, the user does not need to be added to the docker group. Instead, the user must be added to the podman group.