MongoDB is an open-source, document database designed for ease of development and scaling.

Introduction

In this post we will learn how to setup MongoDB on Ubuntu Server. If you are looking for instructions on how to setup MongoDB on Windows check out my previous post on the topic. At the end of this post, we would have accomplished the following objectives:

  • Setup and configured MongoDB as a service on Ubuntu
  • Accessed MongoDB remotely using ufw

Adding the Repository

To follow this tutorial you need:

  • Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

Ubuntu includes its own MongoDB Community Edition packages, however they are mostly not up-to-date. For this tutorial we will be using the official MongoDB Community Edition packages which are generally more up-to-date.
MongoDB only provides packages for 64-bit LTS (long-term support) Ubuntu releases.

Ubuntu ensures the authenticity of software packages by verifying that they are signed with GPG keys, so we first have to import the key for the official MongoDB repository:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv 0C49F3730359A14518585931BC711F9BA15703C6

Next we will create a list file for MongoDB. Create the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-3.4.list list file using the following command:

echo "deb [ arch=amd64,arm64 ] http://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu xenial/mongodb-org/3.4 multiverse" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-3.4.list

We will now reload the local package database:

sudo apt-get update

Installing the MongoDB packages

Now that we got the boring stuff out of the way, let us install MongoDB. Issue the following command to install the latest stable version of MongoDB:

sudo apt-get install -y mongodb-org

The MongoDB instance stores its data files in /var/lib/mongodb and its log files in /var/log/mongodb by default, and runs using the mongodb user account. You can specify alternate log and data file directories in /etc/mongod.conf.

If you change the user that runs the MongoDB process, you must modify the access control rights to the /var/lib/mongodb and /var/log/mongodb directories to give this user access to these directories.

Start MongoDB by issuing the following command:

sudo service mongod start

Verify that the mongod process has started successfully by checking the contents of the log file at /var/log/mongodb/mongod.log:

cat /var/log/mongodb/mongod.log

Look for a line reading:

[initandlisten] waiting for connections on port <port>

where <port> is the port configured in /etc/mongod.conf, 27017 by default.

Stopping and Restarting MongoDB

You can stop the mongod process by issuing the following command:

sudo service mongod stop

In case MongoDB is running and you want to reload configuration, you restart the mongod process with:

sudo service mongod restart

The status of the mongod process can checked with the following command:

sudo service mongod status

To enable start of MongoDB when the system starts, run the following command:

sudo systemctl enable mongod

Adjusting the Firewall

In order to access our MongoDB server from a remote system, we need to modify our firewall rules. Ubuntu 16.04 servers can use the UFW firewall to make sure only connections to certain services are allowed. We can set up a basic firewall very easily using this application.
First we list all applications registered with UFW:

sudo ufw app list

We need to make sure that the firewall allows SSH connections so that we can log back in next time. We can allow these connections by typing:

sudo ufw allow OpenSSH

Afterwards, we can enable the firewall by typing:

sudo ufw enable

Type "y" and press ENTER to proceed. You can see that SSH connections are still allowed by typing:

sudo ufw status

With this out of the way let us allow port 27017 over the firewall. MongoDB default listening port is 27017:

sudo ufw allow 27017

You can verify the change in firewall settings with sudo ufw status.
You should see traffic to 27017 port allowed in the output. If you have decided to allow only a certain IP address to connect to MongoDB server, the IP address of the allowed location will be listed instead of Anywhere in the output.

The final bit of configuration is to allow remote connections to MongoDB:

sudo vi /etc/mongod.conf


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# mongod.conf

# for documentation of all options, see:
#   http://docs.mongodb.org/manual/reference/configuration-options/

# Where and how to store data.
storage:
  dbPath: /var/lib/mongodb
  journal:
    enabled: true
#  engine:
#  mmapv1:
#  wiredTiger:

# where to write logging data.
systemLog:
  destination: file
  logAppend: true
  path: /var/log/mongodb/mongod.log

# network interfaces
net:
  port: 27017
# bindIp: 127.0.0.1


#processManagement:

#security:

#operationProfiling:

#replication:

#sharding:

## Enterprise-Only Options:

#auditLog:

#snmp:

On line 24 just below port: 27017 comment out bindIp: 127.0.0.1.

NOTE
It may be a different line number on your system.

Run sudo service mongod restart to activate the configuration changes.

Conclusion

In this blog post, we learned how to setup MongoDB as a service on Ubuntu. We also learned how to enable MongoDB through network firewall.
I enjoyed writing this post, I hope you did too and until the next post, keep doing cool things :smile:.