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Install MongoDB Community Edition on Debian

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Overview

Use this tutorial to install MongoDB 4.4 Community Edition using the apt package manager.

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.

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.

Official MongoDB Packages

To install MongoDB Community on your Debian system, these instructions will use the official mongodb-org package, which is maintained and supported by MongoDB Inc. The official mongodb-org package always contains the latest version of MongoDB, and is available from its own dedicated repo.

Important

The mongodb package provided by Debian is not maintained by MongoDB Inc. and conflicts with the official mongodb-org package. If you have already installed the mongodb package on your Debian system, you must first uninstall the mongodb package before proceeding with these instructions.

See MongoDB Community Edition Packages for the complete list of official packages.

Install MongoDB Community Edition

Follow these steps to install MongoDB Community Edition using the apt package manager.

1

Import the public key used by the package management system.

From a terminal, issue the following command to import the MongoDB public GPG Key from https://www.mongodb.org/static/pgp/server-4.4.asc:

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wget -qO - https://www.mongodb.org/static/pgp/server-4.4.asc | sudo apt-key add -

The operation should respond with an OK.

However, if you receive an error indicating that gnupg is not installed, you can:

  1. Install gnupg and its required libraries using the following command:

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    sudo apt-get install gnupg

  2. Once installed, retry importing the key:

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    wget -qO - https://www.mongodb.org/static/pgp/server-4.4.asc | sudo apt-key add -
2

Create a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-4.4.list file for MongoDB.

Create the list file using the command appropriate for your version of Debian:

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echo "deb http://repo.mongodb.org/apt/debian buster/mongodb-org/4.4 main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-4.4.list
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echo "deb http://repo.mongodb.org/apt/debian stretch/mongodb-org/4.4 main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-4.4.list
3

Reload local package database.

Issue the following command to reload the local package database:

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sudo apt-get update
4

Install the MongoDB packages.

You can install either the latest stable version of MongoDB or a specific version of MongoDB.

To install the latest stable version, issue the following

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sudo apt-get install -y mongodb-org

To install a specific release, you must specify each component package individually along with the version number, as in the following example:

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sudo apt-get install -y mongodb-org=4.4.1 mongodb-org-server=4.4.1 mongodb-org-shell=4.4.1 mongodb-org-mongos=4.4.1 mongodb-org-tools=4.4.1

If you only install mongodb-org=4.4.1 and do not include the component packages, the latest version of each MongoDB package will be installed regardless of what version you specified.

Optional. Although you can specify any available version of MongoDB, apt-get will upgrade the packages when a newer version becomes available. To prevent unintended upgrades, you can pin the package at the currently installed version:

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echo "mongodb-org hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections
echo "mongodb-org-server hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections
echo "mongodb-org-shell hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections
echo "mongodb-org-mongos hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections
echo "mongodb-org-tools hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections

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 on your system. These instructions assume that you are using the official mongodb-org package – not the unofficial mongodb package provided by Debian – and are using the default settings.

Init System

To run and manage your mongod process, you will be using your operating system’s built-in init system. Recent versions of Linux tend to use systemd (which uses the systemctl command), while older versions of Linux tend to use System V init (which uses the service command).

If you are unsure which init system your platform uses, run the following command:

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ps --no-headers -o comm 1

Then select the appropriate tab below based on the result:

  • systemd - select the systemd (systemctl) tab below.
  • init - select the System V Init (service) tab below.

1

Start MongoDB.

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

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sudo systemctl start mongod

If you receive an error similar to the following when starting mongod:

Failed to start mongod.service: Unit mongod.service not found.

Run the following command first:

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sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Then run the start command above again.

2

Verify that MongoDB has started successfully.

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sudo systemctl status mongod

You can optionally ensure that MongoDB will start following a system reboot by issuing the following command:

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sudo systemctl enable mongod
3

Stop MongoDB.

As needed, you can stop the mongod process by issuing the following command:

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sudo systemctl stop mongod
4

Restart MongoDB.

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

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sudo systemctl restart mongod

You can follow the state of the process for errors or important messages by watching the output in the /var/log/mongodb/mongod.log file.

5

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.

1

Start MongoDB.

Issue the following command to start mongod:

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sudo service mongod start
2

Verify that MongoDB has started successfully

Verify that the mongod process has started successfully:

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sudo service mongod status

You can also check the log file for the current status of the mongod process, located at: /var/log/mongodb/mongod.log by default. A running mongod instance will indicate that it is ready for connections with the following line:

[initandlisten] waiting for connections on port 27017

3

Stop MongoDB.

As needed, you can stop the mongod process by issuing the following command:

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sudo service mongod stop
4

Restart MongoDB.

Issue the following command to restart mongod:

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sudo service mongod restart
5

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.

Uninstall MongoDB Community Edition

To completely remove MongoDB from a system, you must remove the MongoDB applications themselves, the configuration files, and any directories containing data and logs. The following section guides you through the necessary steps.

Warning

This process will completely remove MongoDB, its configuration, and all databases. This process is not reversible, so ensure that all of your configuration and data is backed up before proceeding.

1

Stop MongoDB.

Stop the mongod process by issuing the following command:

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sudo service mongod stop
2

Remove Packages.

Remove any MongoDB packages that you had previously installed.

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sudo apt-get purge mongodb-org*
3

Remove Data Directories.

Remove MongoDB databases and log files.

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sudo rm -r /var/log/mongodb
sudo rm -r /var/lib/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.

MongoDB Community Edition Packages

MongoDB Community Edition is available from its own dedicated repository, and contains the following officially-supported packages:

Package Name Description
mongodb-org A metapackage that automatically installs the component packages listed below.
mongodb-org-server Contains the mongod daemon, associated init script, and a configuration file (/etc/mongod.conf). You can use the initialization script to start mongod with the configuration file. For details, see Run MongoDB Community Edition.
mongodb-org-mongos Contains the mongos daemon.
mongodb-org-shell Contains the mongo shell.
mongodb-org-tools

A metapackage that automatically installs the component packages listed below:

Package Name Description
mongodb-database-tools

Contains the following MongoDB database tools:
mongodb-org-database-tools-extra Contains the install_compass script

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