The Directory Proxy Server should only be started by the user or role used to initially install the server. In most cases, if an attempt is made to start the server as a user or role other than the one used to create the initial configuration, then the server will fail to start, because the user will not have sufficient permissions to access files owned by the other user, such as database and log files. However, if the server was initially installed as a non-root user and then the server is started by the root account, then it can no longer be possible to start the server as a non-root user because new files that are created would be owned by root and could not be written by other users.

If the server was inadvertently started by root when it is intended to be run by a non-root user, or if you wish to change the user account that should be used to run the server, then it should be sufficient to simply change ownership on all files in the Directory Proxy Server installation, so that they are owned by the user or role under which the server should run. For example, if the Directory Proxy Server should be run as the "ds" user in the "other" group, then the following command can be used to accomplish this (invoked by the root user):
chown -R ds:other /ds/PingDirectoryProxy