---
title: Grant privileges and roles needed for setup
description: Administrators who set up Auditbeat typically need to load mappings, dashboards, and other objects used to index data into Elasticsearch and visualize...
url: https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/beats/auditbeat/privileges-to-setup-beats
products:
  - Auditbeat
  - Beats
applies_to:
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
---

# Grant privileges and roles needed for setup
<important>
  Setting up Auditbeat is an admin-level task that requires extra privileges. As a best practice, grant the setup role to administrators only, and use a more restrictive role for event publishing.
</important>

Administrators who set up Auditbeat typically need to load mappings, dashboards, and other objects used to index data into Elasticsearch and visualize it in Kibana.
To grant users the required privileges:
1. Create a **setup role**, called something like `auditbeat_setup`, that has the following privileges:
   | Type    | Privilege                         | Purpose                                                   |
   |---------|-----------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------|
   | Cluster | `monitor`                         | Retrieve cluster details (e.g. version)                   |
   | Cluster | `manage_ilm`                      | Set up and manage index lifecycle management (ILM) policy |
   | Index   | `manage` on `auditbeat-*` indices | Load data stream                                          |
   Omit any privileges that aren’t relevant in your environment.
   <note>
   These instructions assume that you are using the default name for Auditbeat indices. If `auditbeat-*` is not listed, or you are using a custom name, enter it manually and modify the privileges to match your index naming pattern.
   </note>
2. Assign the **setup role**, along with the following built-in roles, to users who need to set up Auditbeat:
   | Role           | Purpose                                                                  |
   |----------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|
   | `kibana_admin` | Load dependencies, such as example dashboards, if available, into Kibana |
   | `ingest_admin` | Set up index templates and, if available, ingest pipelines               |
   Omit any roles that aren’t relevant in your environment.