• Reference >
• MongoDB Package Components >
• mongorestore

mongorestore

Mac OSX Sierra and Go 1.6 Incompatibility

Users running on Mac OSX Sierra require the 3.2.10 or newer version of mongorestore.

Synopsis

The mongorestore program loads data from either a binary database dump created by mongodump or the standard input (starting in version 3.0.0) into a mongod or mongos instance.

Run mongorestore from the system command line, not the mongo shell.

For an overview of mongorestore usage, see Back Up and Restore with MongoDB Tools.

Behavior

Insert Only

mongorestore can create a new database or add data to an existing database. However, mongorestore performs inserts only and does not perform updates. That is, if restoring documents to an existing database and collection and existing documents have the same value _id field as the to-be-restored documents, mongorestore will not overwrite those documents.

Rebuild Indexes

mongorestore recreates indexes recorded by mongodump.

Note

Starting in MongoDB 2.6, creating indexes will error if an index key in an existing document exceeds the limit. See Enforce Index Key Length Limit for more information and solution.

If you have an existing data set that violates this limit but want to resolve the index issue after restoring the data, you can disable the default index key length validation on the target database by setting the mongod instance’s failIndexKeyTooLong parameter to false.

Version Compatibility

The data format used by mongodump from version 2.2 or later is incompatible with earlier versions of mongod. Do not use recent versions of mongodump to back up older data stores.

Exclude system.profile Collection

mongorestore does not restore the system.profile collection data.

Required Access

To restore data to a MongoDB deployment that has access control enabled, the restore role provides access to restore any database if the backup data does not include system.profile collection data.

If the backup data includes system.profile collection data and the target database does not contain the system.profile collection, mongorestore attempts to create the collection even though the program does not actually restore system.profile documents. As such, the user requires additional privileges to perform createCollection and convertToCapped actions on the system.profile collection for a database.

As of MongoDB 3.2.11, you can run mongorestore with --oplogReplay if you have the restore role. To replay the oplog on versions of MongoDB 3.2.10 and earlier, you must create a user-defined role that has anyAction on anyResource and grant only to users who must run mongorestore with --oplogReplay.

Options

Changed in version 3.0.0: mongorestore removed the --filter, --dbpath, and the --noobjcheck options.

mongorestore

--help

Returns information on the options and use of mongorestore.

--verbose, -v

Increases the amount of internal reporting returned on standard output or in log files. Increase the verbosity with the -v form by including the option multiple times, (e.g. -vvvvv.)

--quiet

Runs mongorestore in a quiet mode that attempts to limit the amount of output.

This option suppresses:

• output from database commands
• replication activity
• connection accepted events
• connection closed events

--version

Returns the mongorestore release number.

--uri <connectionString>

New in version 3.4.6.

Specify a resolvable URI connection string for the mongod to which to connect.

The following is the standard URI connection scheme:

copy

mongodb://[username:password@]host1[:port1][,host2[:port2],...[,hostN[:portN]]][/[database][?options]]

For detailed explanations of the components of this string, refer to the Connection String URI Format documentation.

Important

The following mongorestore options are incompatible with the --uri option. Instead, specify these options as part of your --uri connection string when applicable:

• --host
• --port
• --db
• --username
• --password (when specifying the password as part of the URI connection string)
• --authenticationDatabase
• --authenticationMechanism

--host <hostname><:port>, -h <hostname><:port>

Default: localhost:27017

Specifies a resolvable hostname for the mongod to which to connect. By default, the mongorestore attempts to connect to a MongoDB instance running on the localhost on port number 27017.

To connect to a replica set, specify the replSetName and a seed list of set members, as in the following:

copy

--host <replSetName>/<hostname1><:port>,<hostname2><:port>,<...>

When specifying the replica set list format, mongorestore always connects to the primary.

You can also connect to any single member of the replica set by specifying the host and port of only that member:

copy

--host <hostname1><:port>

Changed in version 3.0.0: If you use IPv6 and use the <address>:<port> format, you must enclose the portion of an address and port combination in brackets (e.g. [<address>]).

--port <port>

Default: 27017

Specifies the TCP port on which the MongoDB instance listens for client connections.

--ssl

New in version 2.6.

Enables connection to a mongod or mongos that has TLS/SSL support enabled.

For more information about TLS/SSL and MongoDB, see Configure mongod and mongos for TLS/SSL and TLS/SSL Configuration for Clients .

--sslCAFile <filename>

New in version 2.6.

Specifies the .pem file that contains the root certificate chain from the Certificate Authority. Specify the file name of the .pem file using relative or absolute paths.

Starting in version 3.4, if --sslCAFile or ssl.CAFile is not specified and you are not using x.509 authentication, the system-wide CA certificate store will be used when connecting to an TLS/SSL-enabled server.

If using x.509 authentication, --sslCAFile or ssl.CAFile must be specified unless using --sslCertificateSelector.

Warning

Version 3.2 and earlier: For TLS/SSL connections (--ssl) to mongod and mongos, if the mongorestore runs without the --sslCAFile, mongorestore will not attempt to validate the server certificates. This creates a vulnerability to expired mongod and mongos certificates as well as to foreign processes posing as valid mongod or mongos instances. Ensure that you always specify the CA file to validate the server certificates in cases where intrusion is a possibility.

For more information about TLS/SSL and MongoDB, see Configure mongod and mongos for TLS/SSL and TLS/SSL Configuration for Clients .

--sslPEMKeyFile <filename>

New in version 2.6.

Specifies the .pem file that contains both the TLS/SSL certificate and key. Specify the file name of the .pem file using relative or absolute paths.

This option is required when using the --ssl option to connect to a mongod or mongos that has CAFile enabled without allowConnectionsWithoutCertificates.

For more information about TLS/SSL and MongoDB, see Configure mongod and mongos for TLS/SSL and TLS/SSL Configuration for Clients .

--sslPEMKeyPassword <value>

New in version 2.6.

Specifies the password to de-crypt the certificate-key file (i.e. --sslPEMKeyFile). Use the --sslPEMKeyPassword option only if the certificate-key file is encrypted. In all cases, the mongorestore will redact the password from all logging and reporting output.

If the private key in the PEM file is encrypted and you do not specify the --sslPEMKeyPassword option, the mongorestore will prompt for a passphrase. See TLS/SSL Certificate Passphrase.

For more information about TLS/SSL and MongoDB, see Configure mongod and mongos for TLS/SSL and TLS/SSL Configuration for Clients .

--sslCRLFile <filename>

New in version 2.6.

Specifies the .pem file that contains the Certificate Revocation List. Specify the file name of the .pem file using relative or absolute paths.

For more information about TLS/SSL and MongoDB, see Configure mongod and mongos for TLS/SSL and TLS/SSL Configuration for Clients .

--sslAllowInvalidCertificates

New in version 2.6.

Bypasses the validation checks for server certificates and allows the use of invalid certificates. When using the allowInvalidCertificates setting, MongoDB logs as a warning the use of the invalid certificate.

Starting in MongoDB 4.0, if you specify --sslAllowInvalidCertificates or ssl.allowInvalidCertificates: true when using x.509 authentication, an invalid certificate is only sufficient to establish a TLS/SSL connection but is insufficient for authentication.

Warning

Although available, avoid using the --sslAllowInvalidCertificates option if possible. If the use of --sslAllowInvalidCertificates is necessary, only use the option on systems where intrusion is not possible.

If the mongo shell (and other MongoDB Tools) runs with the --sslAllowInvalidCertificates option, the mongo shell (and other MongoDB Tools) will not attempt to validate the server certificates. This creates a vulnerability to expired mongod and mongos certificates as well as to foreign processes posing as valid mongod or mongos instances. If you only need to disable the validation of the hostname in the TLS/SSL certificates, see --sslAllowInvalidHostnames.

For more information about TLS/SSL and MongoDB, see Configure mongod and mongos for TLS/SSL and TLS/SSL Configuration for Clients .

--sslAllowInvalidHostnames

New in version 3.0.

Disables the validation of the hostnames in TLS/SSL certificates. Allows mongorestore to connect to MongoDB instances even if the hostname in their certificates do not match the specified hostname.

For more information about TLS/SSL and MongoDB, see Configure mongod and mongos for TLS/SSL and TLS/SSL Configuration for Clients .

--sslFIPSMode

New in version 2.6.

Directs the mongorestore to use the FIPS mode of the TLS/SSL library. Your system must have a FIPS compliant library to use the --sslFIPSMode option.

Note

FIPS-compatible TLS/SSL is available only in MongoDB Enterprise. See Configure MongoDB for FIPS for more information.

--username <username>, -u <username>

Specifies a username with which to authenticate to a MongoDB database that uses authentication. Use in conjunction with the --password and --authenticationDatabase options.

--password <password>, -p <password>

Specifies a password with which to authenticate to a MongoDB database that uses authentication. Use in conjunction with the --username and --authenticationDatabase options.

Changed in version 3.0.0: If you do not specify an argument for --password, mongorestore returns an error.

Changed in version 3.0.2: If you wish mongorestore to prompt the user for the password, pass the --username option without --password or specify an empty string as the --password value, as in --password "" .

--authenticationDatabase <dbname>

Specifies the database in which the user is created. See Authentication Database.

--authenticationMechanism <name>

Default: SCRAM-SHA-1

Specifies the authentication mechanism the mongorestore instance uses to authenticate to the mongod or mongos.

Changed in version 4.0: MongoDB removes support for the deprecated MongoDB Challenge-Response (MONGODB-CR) authentication mechanism.

MongoDB adds support for SCRAM mechanism using the SHA-256 hash function (SCRAM-SHA-256).

Value	Description
SCRAM-SHA-1	RFC 5802 standard Salted Challenge Response Authentication Mechanism using the SHA-1 hash function.
SCRAM-SHA-256	RFC 7677 standard Salted Challenge Response Authentication Mechanism using the SHA-256 hash function. Requires featureCompatibilityVersion set to 4.0. New in version 4.0.
MONGODB-X509	MongoDB TLS/SSL certificate authentication.
GSSAPI (Kerberos)	External authentication using Kerberos. This mechanism is available only in MongoDB Enterprise.
PLAIN (LDAP SASL)	External authentication using LDAP. You can also use PLAIN for authenticating in-database users. PLAIN transmits passwords in plain text. This mechanism is available only in MongoDB Enterprise.

--gssapiServiceName

New in version 2.6.

Specify the name of the service using GSSAPI/Kerberos. Only required if the service does not use the default name of mongodb.

This option is available only in MongoDB Enterprise.

--gssapiHostName

New in version 2.6.

Specify the hostname of a service using GSSAPI/Kerberos. Only required if the hostname of a machine does not match the hostname resolved by DNS.

This option is available only in MongoDB Enterprise.

--db <database>, -d <database>

Specifies a database for mongorestore to restore data into. If the database does not exist, mongorestore creates the database. If you do not specify a <db>, mongorestore creates new databases that correspond to the databases where data originated and data may be overwritten. Use this option to restore data into a MongoDB instance that already has data.

--db does not control which BSON files mongorestore restores. You must use the mongorestore path option to limit that restored data.

--collection <collection>, -c <collection>

Specifies a single collection for mongorestore to restore. If you do not specify --collection, mongorestore takes the collection name from the input filename. If the input file has an extension, MongoDB omits the extension of the file from the collection name.

--nsExclude <namespace pattern>

New in version 3.4.

Excludes the specified namespaces from the restore operation.

--nsExclude accepts a namespace pattern as its argument. The namespace pattern permits --nsExclude to refer to any namespace that matches the specified pattern. mongorestore matches the smallest valid occurence of the namespace pattern.

Use asterisks (*) as wild cards. Escape all literal asterisks and backslashes with a backslash. Restore Collections Using Wild Cards provides an example of using asterisks as wild cards.

--nsInclude <namespace pattern>

New in version 3.4.

Includes only the specified namespaces in the restore operation. By enabling you to specify multiple collections to restore, --nsInclude offers a superset of the functionality of the --collection option.

--nsInclude accepts a namespace pattern as its argument. The namespace pattern permits --nsInclude to refer to any namespace that matches the specified pattern. mongorestore matches the smallest valid occurence of the namespace pattern.

Use asterisks (*) as wild cards. Escape all literal asterisks and backslashes with a backslash. Restore Collections Using Wild Cards provides an example of using asterisks as wild cards.

--nsFrom <namespace pattern>

New in version 3.4.

Use with --nsTo to rename a namespace during the restore operation. --nsFrom specifies the collection in the dump file, while --nsTo specifies the name that should be used in the restored database.

--nsFrom accepts a namespace pattern as its argument. The namespace pattern permits --nsFrom to refer to any namespace that matches the specified pattern. mongorestore matches the smallest valid occurence of the namespace pattern.

For simple replacements, use asterisks (*) as wild cards. Escape all literal asterisks and backslashes with a backslash. Replacements correspond linearly to matches: each asterisk in --nsFrom must correspond to an asterisk in --nsTo, and the first asterisk in --nsFrom matches the first asterisk in nsTo.

For more complex replacements, use dollar signs to delimit a “wild card” variable to use in the replacement. Change Collections’ Namespaces during Restore provides an example of complex replacements with dollar sign-delimited wild cards.

Unlike replacements with asterisks, replacements with dollar sign-delimited wild cards do not need to be linear.

--nsTo <namespace pattern>

New in version 3.4.

Use with --nsFrom to rename a namespace during the restore operation. --nsTo specifies the new collection name to use in the restored database, while --nsFrom specifies the name in the dump file.

--nsTo accepts a namespace pattern as its argument. The namespace pattern permits --nsTo to refer to any namespace that matches the specified pattern. mongorestore matches the smallest valid occurence of the namespace pattern.

For simple replacements, use asterisks (*) as wild cards. Escape all literal asterisks and backslashes with a backslash. Replacements correspond linearly to matches: each asterisk in --nsFrom must correspond to an asterisk in --nsTo, and the first asterisk in --nsFrom matches the first asterisk in nsTo.

For more complex replacements, use dollar signs to delimit a “wild card” variable to use in the replacement. Change Collections’ Namespaces during Restore provides an example of complex replacements with dollar sign-delimited wild cards.

Unlike replacements with asterisks, replacements with dollar sign-delimited wild cards do not need to be linear.

--objcheck

Forces mongorestore to validate all requests from clients upon receipt to ensure that clients never insert invalid documents into the database. For objects with a high degree of sub-document nesting, --objcheck can have a small impact on performance.

--drop

Before restoring the collections from the dumped backup, drops the collections from the target database. --drop does not drop collections that are not in the backup.

When the restore includes the admin database, mongorestore with --drop removes all user credentials and replaces them with the users defined in the dump file. Therefore, in systems with authorization enabled, mongorestore must be able to authenticate to an existing user and to a user defined in the dump file. If mongorestore can’t authenticate to a user defined in the dump file, the restoration process will fail, leaving an empty database.

--dryRun

New in version 3.4.

Runs mongorestore without actually importing any data, returning the mongorestore summary information. Use with --verbose to produce more detailed summary information.

--oplogReplay

After restoring the database dump, replays the oplog entries from a bson file. When used in conjunction with mongodump --oplog, ~bin.mongorestore --oplogReplay restores the database to the point-in-time backup captured with the mongodump --oplog command.

mongorestore searches for any valid source for the bson file in the following locations:

• The top level of the dump directory, as in the case of a dump created with mongodump --oplog.
• The path specified by --oplogFile.
• <dump-directory>/local/oplog.rs.bson, as in the case of a dump of the oplog.rs collection in the local database on a mongod that is a member of a replica set.

If there is an oplog.bson file at the top level of the dump directory and a path specified by --oplogFile, mongorestore returns an error.

If there is an oplog.bson file at the top level of the dump directory, mongorestore restores that file as the oplog. If there are also bson files in the dump/local directory, mongorestore restores them like normal collections.

If you specify an oplog file using --oplogFile, mongorestore restores that file as the oplog. If there are also bson files in the dump/local directory, mongorestore restores them like normal collections.

For an example of --oplogReplay, see Restore Point in Time Oplog Backup.

Note

When using mongorestore with --oplogReplay to restore a replica set, you must restore a full dump of a replica set member created using ~bin.mongodump --oplog. mongorestore with --oplogReplay fails if you use any of the following options to limit the data be restored:

• --db
• --collection
• --nsInclude
• --nsExclude

See also

mongorestore Required Access

See also

mongodump --oplog

--oplogLimit <timestamp>

Prevents mongorestore from applying oplog entries with timestamp newer than or equal to <timestamp>. Specify <timestamp> values in the form of <time_t>:<ordinal>, where <time_t> is the seconds since the UNIX epoch, and <ordinal> represents a counter of operations in the oplog that occurred in the specified second.

You must use --oplogLimit in conjunction with the --oplogReplay option.

--oplogFile <path>

New in version 3.4.

Specifies the path to the oplog file containing oplog data for the restore. Use with --oplogReplay.

If you specify --oplogFile and there is an oplog.bson file at the top level of the dump directory, mongorestore returns an error.

--keepIndexVersion

Prevents mongorestore from upgrading the index to the latest version during the restoration process.

--noIndexRestore

Prevents mongorestore from restoring and building indexes as specified in the corresponding mongodump output.

--noOptionsRestore

Prevents mongorestore from setting the collection options, such as those specified by the collMod database command, on restored collections.

--restoreDbUsersAndRoles

Restore user and role definitions for the given database. See system.roles Collection and system.users Collection for more information.

--writeConcern <document>

Default: majority

Specifies the write concern for each write operation that mongorestore writes to the target database.

Specify the write concern as a document with w options.

--maintainInsertionOrder

Default: False

If specified, mongorestore inserts the documents in the order of their appearance in the input source, otherwise mongorestore may perform the insertions in an arbitrary order.

--numParallelCollections int, -j int

Default: 4

Number of collections mongorestore should restore in parallel.

If you specify -j when restoring a single collection, -j maps to the --numInsertionWorkersPerCollection option rather than --numParallelCollections.

--numInsertionWorkersPerCollection int

Default: 1

New in version 3.0.0.

Specifies the number of insertion workers to run concurrently per collection.

For large imports, increasing the number of insertion workers may increase the speed of the import.

--stopOnError

New in version 3.0.

Forces mongorestore to halt the restore when it encounters an error.

--bypassDocumentValidation

Enables mongorestore to bypass document validation during the operation. This lets you insert documents that do not meet the validation requirements.

New in version 3.2.1.

--gzip

New in version 3.2.

Restores from compressed files or data stream created by ~bin.mongodump --archive

To restore from a dump directory that contains compressed files, run mongorestore with the new --gzip option.

To restore from a compressed archive file, run mongorestore with the --gzip option in conjunction with the --archive option.

<path>

The final argument of the mongorestore command is a directory path. This argument specifies the location of the database dump from which to restore.

You cannot specify both the <path> argument and the --dir option, which also specifies the dump directory, to mongorestore.

--archive <=file|null>

New in version 3.2.

Restores from an archive file or from the standard input (stdin).

To restore from an archive file, run mongorestore with the --archive option and the archive filename.

To restore from the standard input, run mongorestore with the --archive option but omit the filename.

Note

• You cannot use the --archive option with the --dir option.
• mongorestore still supports the positional - parameter to restore a single collection from the standard input.

--dir string

Specifies the dump directory.

• You cannot specify both the --dir option and the <path> argument, which also specifies the dump directory, to mongorestore.
• You cannot use the --archive option with the --dir option.

Examples

Restore a Collection

Consider the following example:

copy

mongorestore --collection people --db accounts dump/

Here, mongorestore reads the database dump in the dump/ sub-directory of the current directory, and restores only the documents in the collection named people from the database named accounts. mongorestore restores data to the instance running on the localhost interface on port 27017.

New in version 3.4.

You may alternatively use --nsInclude to specify the canonical name of the collection that you wish to restore rather than --collection. --nsInclude enables you to specify the namespace of one or more collections that you wish to include in the restore operation. The following example restores the people collection from the accounts database in the dump/ sub-directory of the current directory:

copy

mongorestore --nsInclude accounts.people dump/

Restore Collections Using Wild Cards

New in version 3.4.

--nsInclude and --nsExclude support specifying the namespaces you wish to include or exclude from a restore operation using asterisks as wild cards.

The following example restores the documents in the dump/ sub-directory of the current directory that match the specified namespace pattern. The --nsInclude statement specifies to only restore documents in the transactions database while --nsExclude instructs mongorestore to exclude collections whose names end with _dev. mongorestore restores data to the mongod instance running on the localhost interface on port 27017.

copy

mongorestore --nsInclude 'transactions.*' --nsExclude 'transactions.*_dev' dump/

Change Collections’ Namespaces during Restore

New in version 3.4.

MongoDB 3.4 added the --nsFrom and --nsTo options, which enable you to change the namespace of a collection that you are restoring. --nsFrom and --nsTo support using asterisks as wild cards and support using dollar signs to delimit “wild card” variables to use in the replacement.

Consider a database data that you have exported to a dump/ directory using mongodump. The data database contains the following collections:

• sales_customer1
• sales_customer2
• sales_customer3
• users_customer1
• users_customer2
• users_customer3

Using --nsFrom and --nsTo, you can restore the data into different namespaces. The following operation

• restores the sales_<customerName> collections in the data database to sales collections in the <customerName> database, and
• restores the users_<customerName> collections to users collections in the <customerName> database.

copy

mongorestore --nsInclude 'data.*' --nsFrom 'data.$prefix$_$customer$' --nsTo '$customer$.$prefix$'

Restore with Access Control

In the following example, mongorestore restores a database dump located at /opt/backup/mongodump-2011-10-24, to a database running on port 37017 on the host mongodb1.example.net. The mongorestore command authenticates to the MongoDB instance using the username user and the password pass, as follows:

copy

mongorestore --host mongodb1.example.net --port 37017 --username user --password "pass" /opt/backup/mongodump-2011-10-24

Restore a Collection from Standard Input

You can also pipe data directly into to mongorestore through standard input, as in the following example:

copy

zcat /opt/backup/mongodump-2014-12-03/accounts.people.bson.gz | mongorestore --collection people --db accounts -

Restore a Database from an Archive File

New in version 3.2.

To restore from an archive file, run restore with the new --archive option and the archive filename. For example, the following operation restores the test database from the file test.20150715.archive.

copy

mongorestore --archive=test.20150715.archive --db test

Restore a Database from Standard Input

New in version 3.2.

To restore from the standard input, run mongorestore with the archive option but omit the filename. For example:

copy

mongodump --archive --db test --port 27017 | mongorestore --archive --port 27018

Restore from Compressed Data

New in version 3.2: With the --gzip option, mongorestore can restore from compressed files or data stream created by mongodump.

To restore from a dump directory that contains compressed files, run mongorestore with the new --gzip option. For example, the following operation restores the test database from the compressed files located in the default dump directory:

copy

mongorestore --gzip --db test

To restore from a compressed archive file, run mongorestore with the --gzip option in conjunction with the new --archive option. For example, the following operation restores the test database from the archive file test.20150715.gz.

copy

mongorestore --gzip --archive=test.20150715.gz --db test

Additional Resources

• Backup and its Role in Disaster Recovery White Paper
• Cloud Backup through MongoDB Cloud Manager
• Blog Post: Backup vs. Replication, Why you Need Both
• Backup Service with Ops Manager, an on-premise solution available in MongoDB Enterprise Advanced
• MongoDB Atlas: For a simple way to run, monitor, and maintain cloud-hosted MongoDB deployments

←   mongodump bsondump  →

© MongoDB, Inc 2008-present. MongoDB, Mongo, and the leaf logo are registered trademarks of MongoDB, Inc.