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createUser

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  • Definition
  • Compatibility
  • Syntax
  • Behavior
  • Required Access
  • Example
createUser

Creates a new user on the database where you run the command. The createUser command returns a duplicate user error if the user exists.

Tip

In mongosh, this command can also be run through the db.createUser() helper method.

Helper methods are convenient for mongosh users, but they may not return the same level of information as database commands. In cases where the convenience is not needed or the additional return fields are required, use the database command.

This command is available in deployments hosted in the following environments:

  • MongoDB Atlas: The fully managed service for MongoDB deployments in the cloud

Note

This command has limited support in M0, M2, M5, and M10 clusters. For more information, see Unsupported Commands.

The command has the following syntax:

Tip

Starting in version 4.2 of the mongo shell, you can use the passwordPrompt() method in conjunction with various user authentication/management methods/commands to prompt for the password instead of specifying the password directly in the method/command call. However, you can still specify the password directly as you would with earlier versions of the mongo shell.

db.runCommand(
{
createUser: "<name>",
pwd: passwordPrompt(), // Or "<cleartext password>"
customData: { <any information> },
roles: [
{ role: "<role>", db: "<database>" } | "<role>",
...
],
writeConcern: { <write concern> },
authenticationRestrictions: [
{ clientSource: [ "<IP|CIDR range>", ... ], serverAddress: [ "<IP|CIDR range>", ... ] },
...
],
mechanisms: [ "<scram-mechanism>", ... ], //Available starting in MongoDB 4.0
digestPassword: <boolean>,
comment: <any>
}
)

createUser has the following fields:

Field
Type
Description
createUser
string
The name of the new user.
pwd
string

The user's password. The pwd field is not required if you run createUser on the $external database to create users who have credentials stored externally to MongoDB.

The value can be either:

  • the user's password in cleartext string, or

  • passwordPrompt() to prompt for the user's password.

Tip

Starting in version 4.2 of the mongo shell, you can use the passwordPrompt() method in conjunction with various user authentication/management methods/commands to prompt for the password instead of specifying the password directly in the method/command call. However, you can still specify the password directly as you would with earlier versions of the mongo shell.

customData
document
Optional. Any arbitrary information. This field can be used to store any data an admin wishes to associate with this particular user. For example, this could be the user's full name or employee id.
roles
array
The roles granted to the user. Can specify an empty array [] to create users without roles.
digestPassword
boolean

Optional. Indicates whether the server or the client digests the password.

If true, the server receives undigested password from the client and digests the password.

If false, the client digests the password and passes the digested password to the server. Not compatible with SCRAM-SHA-256

Changed in version 4.0: The default value is true. In earlier versions, the default value is false.

writeConcern
document

Optional. The level of write concern for the operation. See Write Concern Specification.

authenticationRestrictions
array
Optional. The authentication restrictions the server enforces on the created user. Specifies a list of IP addresses and CIDR ranges from which the user is allowed to connect to the server or from which the server can accept users.
mechanisms
array

Optional. Specify the specific SCRAM mechanism or mechanisms for creating SCRAM user credentials. If authenticationMechanisms is specified, you can only specify a subset of the authenticationMechanisms.

Valid values are:

  • "SCRAM-SHA-1"

  • Uses the SHA-1 hashing function.

  • "SCRAM-SHA-256"

  • Uses the SHA-256 hashing function.

  • Requires featureCompatibilityVersion set to 4.0.

  • Requires digestPassword to be true.

The default for featureCompatibilityVersion is 4.0 is both SCRAM-SHA-1 and SCRAM-SHA-256.

The default for featureCompatibilityVersion is 3.6 is SCRAM-SHA-1.

New in version 4.0.

digestPassword
boolean

Optional. Indicates whether the server or the client digests the password.

If true, the server receives undigested password from the client and digests the password.

If false, the client digests the password and passes the digested password to the server. Not compatible with SCRAM-SHA-256

Changed in version 4.0: The default value is true. In earlier versions, the default value is false.

comment
any

Optional. A user-provided comment to attach to this command. Once set, this comment appears alongside records of this command in the following locations:

A comment can be any valid BSON type (string, integer, object, array, etc).

In the roles field, you can specify both built-in roles and user-defined roles.

To specify a role that exists in the same database where createUser runs, you can either specify the role with the name of the role:

"readWrite"

Or you can specify the role with a document, as in:

{ role: "<role>", db: "<database>" }

To specify a role that exists in a different database, specify the role with a document.

The authenticationRestrictions document can contain only the following fields. The server throws an error if the authenticationRestrictions document contains an unrecognized field:

Field Name
Value
Description
clientSource
Array of IP addresses and/or CIDR ranges
If present, when authenticating a user, the server verifies that the client's IP address is either in the given list or belongs to a CIDR range in the list. If the client's IP address is not present, the server does not authenticate the user.
serverAddress
Array of IP addresses and/or CIDR ranges
A list of IP addresses or CIDR ranges to which the client can connect. If present, the server will verify that the client's connection was accepted via an IP address in the given list. If the connection was accepted via an unrecognized IP address, the server does not authenticate the user.

Important

If a user inherits multiple roles with incompatible authentication restrictions, that user becomes unusable.

For example, if a user inherits one role in which the clientSource field is ["198.51.100.0"] and another role in which the clientSource field is ["203.0.113.0"] the server is unable to authenticate the user.

For more information on authentication in MongoDB, see Authentication.

Starting in version 4.0.9, MongoDB automatically assigns a unique userId to the user upon creation.

Warning

By default, createUser sends all specified data to the MongoDB instance in cleartext, even if using passwordPrompt(). Use TLS transport encryption to protect communications between clients and the server, including the password sent by createUser. For instructions on enabling TLS transport encryption, see Configure mongod and mongos for TLS/SSL.

MongoDB does not store the password in cleartext. The password is only vulnerable in transit between the client and the server, and only if TLS transport encryption is not enabled.

Users created on the $external database should have credentials stored externally to MongoDB, as, for example, with MongoDB Enterprise installations that use Kerberos.

To use Client Sessions and Causal Consistency Guarantees with $external authentication users (Kerberos, LDAP, or x.509 users), usernames cannot be greater than 10k bytes.

You cannot create users on the local database.

Usernames must consist of at least one character and cannot be larger than 7MB.

The userAdmin and userAdminAnyDatabase built-in roles provide createUser and grantRole actions on their respective resources.

The following createUser command creates a user accountAdmin01 on the products database. The command gives accountAdmin01 the clusterAdmin and readAnyDatabase roles on the admin database and the readWrite role on the products database:

Tip

Starting in version 4.2 of the mongo shell, you can use the passwordPrompt() method in conjunction with various user authentication/management methods/commands to prompt for the password instead of specifying the password directly in the method/command call. However, you can still specify the password directly as you would with earlier versions of the mongo shell.

db.getSiblingDB("products").runCommand( {
createUser: "accountAdmin01",
pwd: passwordPrompt(),
customData: { employeeId: 12345 },
roles: [
{ role: "clusterAdmin", db: "admin" },
{ role: "readAnyDatabase", db: "admin" },
"readWrite"
],
writeConcern: { w: "majority" , wtimeout: 5000 }
} )
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