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Create Users in MongoDB on Ubuntu 22.04

Prerequisites

  • MongoDB installed on your system
  • MongoDB service running
  • Access to the MongoDB shell (mongosh or mongo)

Step 1: Connect to the MongoDB Shell

First, connect to your MongoDB shell by running:

mongosh

Or, if using the older shell version:

mongo

This will open the MongoDB shell where you can run commands.

Step 2: Switch to the Admin Database

To manage users, you need to switch to the admin database:

use admin

Step 3: Create a Super (Root) User

To create a user with full administrative privileges (root), use the following command:

db.createUser({
  user: "admin_user",
  pwd: "strong_password_here",
  roles: [ { role: "root", db: "admin" } ]
})

Replace admin_user with the desired username and strong_password_here with a strong password. This user will have full control over the entire MongoDB instance.

Step 4: Create a Normal User

Next, create a normal user with read and write permissions on a specific database. First, switch to the database where this user will operate:

use my_database

Then, create the user with the following command:

db.createUser({
  user: "normal_user",
  pwd: "normal_password_here",
  roles: [ { role: "readWrite", db: "my_database" } ]
})

Replace normal_user with the desired username, normal_password_here with the password, and my_database with the name of the database where this user will have access.

Step 5: Enable Authentication (Optional, but Recommended)

If you want to enforce user authentication, you need to enable it in the MongoDB configuration. To do this:

  1. Open the MongoDB configuration file, typically located at /etc/mongod.conf:

    sudo nano /etc/mongod.conf

  2. Find the following line and ensure security is uncommented and authorization is set to enabled:

    security:
  authorization: enabled

  3. Save the file and restart MongoDB:

    sudo systemctl restart mongod

Step 6: Log in with the New User

To log in as the newly created users, you can use the following commands:

  • For the root user:

    mongosh -u "admin_user" -p "strong_password_here" --authenticationDatabase "admin"

  • For the normal user:

    mongosh -u "normal_user" -p "normal_password_here" --authenticationDatabase "my_database"

Finished

You have now successfully created both a root user and a normal user in MongoDB. The root user has full privileges, while the normal user has restricted access to a specific database.

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