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Install MongoDB on Debian

Overview

Use this tutorial to install MongoDB from .deb packages on Debian 7 “Wheezy”. While Debian includes its own MongoDB packages, the official MongoDB packages are more up to date.

MongoDB only provides packages for 64-bit Debian “Wheezy”. These packages may work with other Debian releases, but this is not a supported configuration.

Packages

MongoDB provides officially supported packages in their own repository. This repository contains the following packages:

Init Scripts

The mongodb-org package includes various init scripts, including the init script /etc/init.d/mongod. These scripts are used to stop, start, and restart daemon processes.

The package configures MongoDB using the /etc/mongod.conf file in conjunction with the init scripts. See the Configuration File reference for documentation of settings available in the configuration file.

As of version 3.0.15, there are no init scripts for mongos. The mongos process is used only in sharding. You can use the mongod init script to derive your own mongos init script for use in such environments. See the mongos reference for configuration details.

Considerations

This installation guide only supports 64-bit systems. See Platform Support for details.

You cannot install this package concurrently with the mongodb, mongodb-server, or mongodb-clients packages that your release of Debian may include.

The default /etc/mongod.conf configuration file supplied by the 3.0 series packages has bind_ip set to 127.0.0.1 by default. Modify this setting as needed for your environment before initializing a replica set.

Changed in version 2.6: The package structure and names have changed as of version 2.6. For instructions on installation of an older release, please refer to the documentation for the appropriate version.

Install MongoDB

The Debian package management tools (i.e. dpkg and apt) ensure package consistency and authenticity by requiring that distributors sign packages with GPG keys.

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-3.0.asc:

wget -qO - https://www.mongodb.org/static/pgp/server-3.0.asc | sudo apt-key add -

The operation should respond with an OK.

2

Create a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-3.0.list file for MongoDB.

Create the list file using the following command:

echo "deb http://repo.mongodb.org/apt/debian wheezy/mongodb-org/3.0 main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-3.0.list

Currently packages are only available for Debian 7 (Wheezy).

3

Reload local package database.

Issue the following command to reload the local package database:

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.

Install the latest stable version of MongoDB.

Issue the following command:

sudo apt-get install -y mongodb-org

Install a specific release of MongoDB.

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

sudo apt-get install -y mongodb-org=3.0.15 mongodb-org-server=3.0.15 mongodb-org-shell=3.0.15 mongodb-org-mongos=3.0.15 mongodb-org-tools=3.0.15

If you only install mongodb-org=3.0.15 and do not include the component packages, the latest version of each MongoDB package will be installed regardless of what version you specified.

Pin a specific version of MongoDB.

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, pin the package. To pin the version of MongoDB at the currently installed version, issue the following command sequence:

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

Versions of the MongoDB packages before 2.6 use a different repository location. Refer to the version of the documentation appropriate for your MongoDB version.

Run MongoDB

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. See systemLog.path and storage.dbPath for additional information.

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.

1

Start MongoDB.

Issue the following command to start mongod:

sudo service mongod start
2

Verify that MongoDB has started successfully

Verify that the mongod process has started successfully by checking the contents of the log file at /var/log/mongodb/mongod.log for a line reading

[initandlisten] waiting for connections on port <port>

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

3

Stop MongoDB.

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

sudo service mongod stop
4

Restart MongoDB.

Issue the following command to restart mongod:

sudo service mongod restart
5

Begin using MongoDB.

To help you start using MongoDB, MongoDB provides Getting Started Guides in various driver editions. See Getting Started for the available editions.

Before deploying MongoDB in a production environment, consider the Production Notes document.

Later, to stop MongoDB, press Control+C in the terminal where the mongod instance is running.

Uninstall MongoDB

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:

sudo service mongod stop
2

Remove Packages.

Remove any MongoDB packages that you had previously installed.

sudo apt-get purge mongodb-org*
3

Remove Data Directories.

Remove MongoDB databases and log files.

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