When using the root user, Search server cannot be started due to "don't run <search server> as root"

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Platform notice: Server and Data Center only. This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Server and Data Center platforms.

Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.

*Except Fisheye and Crucible

Problem

Search server cannot be started, therefore Bitbucket Server cannot connect to it.

The following appears in the console output when running the start-search.sh or the start-bitbucket.sh script or the :

root@myserver:# cd /opt/atlassian/bitbucket/bin/
root@myserver:/opt/atlassian/bitbucket/bin# sh start-search.sh 
Starting Elasticsearch bundled with Atlassian Bitbucket
BITBUCKET_HOME set to /var/atlassian/application-data/bitbucket
-e Starting Elasticsearch bundled with Atlassian Bitbucket as current user
-e 
Elasticsearch bundled with Atlassian Bitbucket started successfully
root@myserver:/opt/atlassian/bitbucket/bin# Exception in thread "main" java.lang.RuntimeException: don't run elasticsearch as root.
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.initializeNatives(Bootstrap.java:93)
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.setup(Bootstrap.java:144)
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.init(Bootstrap.java:270)
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.main(Elasticsearch.java:35)
Refer to the log for complete error details.

Diagnosis

Environment

  • Operating system: Unix based 

Cause

Search server cannot be run as root.

Resolution

  • Login as the atlbitbucket user, or for some installations, bitbucket user
  • Run the start script


DescriptionElasticsearch cannot be started, therefore Bitbucket Server cannot connect to it.
Last modified on May 24, 2022

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