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Install MongoDB Community on Debian using .tgz Tarball

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Overview

Use this tutorial to manually install MongoDB 4.4 Community Edition on Debian Linux using a downloaded .tgz tarball.

MongoDB Version

This tutorial installs MongoDB 4.4 Community Edition. To install a different version of MongoDB Community, use the version drop-down menu in the upper-left corner of this page to select the documentation for that version.

Installation Method

While MongoDB can be installed manually via a downloaded .tgz tarball as described in this document, it is recommended to use the apt package manager on your system to install MongoDB if possible. Using a package manager automatically installs all needed dependencies, provides an example mongod.conf file to get you started, and simplifies future upgrade and maintenance tasks.

➤ See Install MongoDB using the apt Package Manager for instructions.

Considerations

Platform Support

MongoDB 4.4 Community Edition supports the following 64-bit Debian releases on x86_64 architecture:

  • Debian 10 “Buster”
  • Debian 9 “Stretch”

MongoDB only supports the 64-bit versions of these platforms.

See Supported Platforms for more information.

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) - Unsupported

MongoDB does not support the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

Production Notes

Before deploying MongoDB in a production environment, consider the Production Notes document which offers performance considerations and configuration recommendations for production MongoDB deployments.

Install MongoDB Community Edition

Prerequisites

Use the following command to install the dependencies required for the MongoDB Community .tgz tarball:

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sudo apt-get install libcurl4 openssl liblzma5
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sudo apt-get install libcurl3 openssl liblzma5

Procedure

Follow these steps to manually install MongoDB Community Edition from the .tgz.

1

Download the tarball.

After you have installed the required prerequisite packages, download the MongoDB Community tgz tarball from the following link:

➤ MongoDB Download Center

  1. In the Version dropdown, select the version of MongoDB to download.
  2. In the Platform dropdown, select your operating system version and architecture.
  3. In the Package dropdown, select tgz.
  4. Click Download.
2

Extract the files from the downloaded archive.

For example, from a system shell, you can extract using the tar command:

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tar -zxvf mongodb-linux-*-4.4.1.tgz
3

Ensure the binaries are in a directory listed in your PATH environment variable.

The MongoDB binaries are in the bin/ directory of the tarball. You can either:

  • Copy the binaries into a directory listed in your PATH variable, such as /usr/local/bin (Update /path/to/the/mongodb-directory/ with your installation directory as appropriate)

    copy 
    sudo cp /path/to/the/mongodb-directory/bin/* /usr/local/bin/

  • Create symbolic links to the binaries from a directory listed in your PATH variable, such as /usr/local/bin (Update /path/to/the/mongodb-directory/ with your installation directory as appropriate):

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    sudo ln -s  /path/to/the/mongodb-directory/bin/* /usr/local/bin/

Run MongoDB Community Edition

ulimit Considerations

Most Unix-like operating systems limit the system resources that a process may use. These limits may negatively impact MongoDB operation, and should be adjusted. See UNIX ulimit Settings for the recommended settings for your platform.

Note

Starting in MongoDB 4.4, a startup error is generated if the ulimit value for number of open files is under 64000.

Directories

By default, MongoDB instance stores:

  • its data files in /var/lib/mongodb
  • its log files in /var/log/mongodb

If you installed via the package manager, these default directories are created during the installation.

If you installed manually by downloading the tarballs, you can create the directories using mkdir -p <directory> or sudo mkdir -p <directory> depending on the user that will run MongoDB. (See your linux man pages for information on mkdir and sudo.)

By default, MongoDB runs using the mongodb user account. If you change the user that runs the MongoDB process, you must also modify the permission to the /var/lib/mongodb and /var/log/mongodb directories to give this user access to these directories.

To specify a different log file directory and data file directory, edit the systemLog.path and storage.dbPath settings in the /etc/mongod.conf. Ensure that the user running MongoDB has access to these directories.

Procedure

Follow these steps to run MongoDB Community Edition. These instructions assume that you are using the default settings.

1

Create the data and log directories.

Create a directory where the MongoDB instance stores its data. For example:

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sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/mongo

Create a directory where the MongoDB instance stores its log. For example:

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sudo mkdir -p /var/log/mongodb

The user that starts the MongoDB process must have read and write permission to these directories. For example, if you intend to run MongoDB as yourself:

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sudo chown `whoami` /var/lib/mongo     # Or substitute another user
sudo chown `whoami` /var/log/mongodb   # Or substitute another user
2

Run MongoDB.

To run MongoDB, run the mongod process at the system prompt.

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mongod --dbpath /var/lib/mongo --logpath /var/log/mongodb/mongod.log --fork

For details on the command-line options --dbpath and --logpath, see Options.

3

Verify that MongoDB has started successfully.

Verify that MongoDB has started successfully by checking the process output for the following line in the log file /var/log/mongodb/mongod.log:

[initandlisten] waiting for connections on port 27017

You may see non-critical warnings in the process output. As long as you see the log line shown above, you can safely ignore these warnings during your initial evaluation of MongoDB.

4

Begin using MongoDB.

Start a mongo shell on the same host machine as the mongod. You can run the mongo shell without any command-line options to connect to a mongod that is running on your localhost with default port 27017:

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mongo

For more information on connecting using the mongo shell, such as to connect to a mongod instance running on a different host and/or port, see The mongo Shell.

To help you start using MongoDB, MongoDB provides Getting Started Guides in various driver editions. For the driver documentation, see Start Developing with MongoDB.

Additional Information

Localhost Binding by Default

By default, MongoDB launches with bindIp set to 127.0.0.1, which binds to the localhost network interface. This means that the mongod can only accept connections from clients that are running on the same machine. Remote clients will not be able to connect to the mongod, and the mongod will not be able to initialize a replica set unless this value is set to a valid network interface.

This value can be configured either:

  • in the MongoDB configuration file with bindIp, or
  • via the command-line argument --bind_ip

Warning

Before binding to a non-localhost (e.g. publicly accessible) IP address, ensure you have secured your cluster from unauthorized access. For a complete list of security recommendations, see Security Checklist. At minimum, consider enabling authentication and hardening network infrastructure.

For more information on configuring bindIp, see IP Binding.

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