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Install MongoDB on Red Hat Enterprise or CentOS Linux

Overview

Use this tutorial to install MongoDB on Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS Linux versions 5, 6, and 7 using .rpm packages. While some of these distributions include their own MongoDB packages, the official MongoDB packages are generally more up to date.

Platform Support

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

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/rc.d/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.

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

1

Configure the package management system (yum).

Create a /etc/yum.repos.d/mongodb-org-3.0.repo file so that you can install MongoDB directly, using yum.

Changed in version 3.0: MongoDB Linux packages for 3.0 are in a new repository.

For the latest stable release of MongoDB

Use the following repository file:

[mongodb-org-3.0]
name=MongoDB Repository
baseurl=https://repo.mongodb.org/yum/redhat/$releasever/mongodb-org/3.0/x86_64/
gpgcheck=0
enabled=1

.repo files for each release can also be found in the repository itself. Remember that odd-numbered minor release versions (e.g. 2.5) are development versions and are unsuitable for production use.

2

Install the MongoDB packages and associated tools.

When you install the packages, you choose whether to install the current release or a previous one. This step provides the commands for both.

To install the latest stable version of MongoDB, issue the following command:

sudo yum install -y mongodb-org

To install a specific release of MongoDB, specify each component package individually and append the version number to the package name, as in the following example:

sudo yum 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

You can specify any available version of MongoDB. However yum will upgrade the packages when a newer version becomes available. To prevent unintended upgrades, pin the package. To pin a package, add the following exclude directive to your /etc/yum.conf file:

exclude=mongodb-org,mongodb-org-server,mongodb-org-shell,mongodb-org-mongos,mongodb-org-tools

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

Run MongoDB

Prerequisites

Configure SELinux

Important

You must configure SELinux to allow MongoDB to start on Red Hat Linux-based systems (Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS Linux).

To configure SELinux, administrators have three options:

Note

All three options require root privileges. The first two options each requires a system reboot and may have larger implications for your deployment.

  • Disable SELinux entirely by changing the SELINUX setting to disabled in /etc/selinux/config.

    SELINUX=disabled
    
  • Set SELinux to permissive mode in /etc/selinux/config by changing the SELINUX setting to permissive .

    SELINUX=permissive
    

    Note

    You can use setenforce to change to permissive mode; this method does not require a reboot but is not persistent.

  • Enable access to the relevant ports (e.g. 27017) for SELinux if in enforcing mode. See Default MongoDB Port for more information on MongoDB’s default ports. For default settings, this can be accomplished by running

    semanage port -a -t mongod_port_t -p tcp 27017
    

    Warning

    On RHEL 7.0, if you change the data path, the default SELinux policies will prevent mongod from having write access on the new data path if you do not change the security context.

You may alternatively choose not to install the SELinux packages when you are installing your Linux operating system, or choose to remove the relevant packages. This option is the most invasive and is not recommended.

Data Directories and Permissions

Warning

On RHEL 7.0, if you change the data path, the default SELinux policies will prevent mongod from having write access on the new data path if you do not change the security context.

The MongoDB instance stores its data files in /var/lib/mongo and its log files in /var/log/mongodb by default, and runs using the mongod 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/mongo and /var/log/mongodb directories to give this user access to these directories.

Procedure

1

Start MongoDB.

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

sudo service mongod start
2

Verify that MongoDB has started successfully

You can 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.

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

sudo chkconfig mongod on
3

Stop MongoDB.

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

sudo service mongod stop
4

Restart MongoDB.

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

sudo service mongod restart

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.

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 yum erase $(rpm -qa | grep mongodb-org)
3

Remove Data Directories.

Remove MongoDB databases and log files.

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