Briefly, this error occurs when a user tries to perform an operation on Elasticsearch without having the necessary permissions. Elasticsearch has built-in security features that restrict certain operations to users with specific roles. To resolve this issue, you can either grant the necessary privileges to the user or perform the operation with a user that already has the required privileges. Alternatively, you can disable the security feature, but this is not recommended as it can expose your Elasticsearch cluster to potential threats.
This guide will help you check for common problems that cause the log ” Operator privileges are required for ” to appear. To understand the issues related to this log, read the explanation below about the following Elasticsearch concepts: plugin.
Log Context
Log “Operator privileges are required for” class name is OperatorPrivileges.java. We extracted the following from Elasticsearch source code for those seeking an in-depth context :
)) {
// Only check whether request is operator-only when user is NOT an operator
logger.trace("Checking operator-only violation for user [{}] and action [{}]"; user; action);
final OperatorPrivilegesViolation violation = operatorOnlyRegistry.check(action; request);
if (violation != null) {
return new ElasticsearchSecurityException("Operator privileges are required for " + violation.message());
}
}
return null;
}
