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Install MongoDB Community Edition on Debian

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Overview

Use this tutorial to install MongoDB 3.6 Community Edition using the apt package manager.

MongoDB Version

This tutorial installs MongoDB 3.6 Community Edition. To install a different version of MongoDB Community, use the version drop-down menu in the upper-left corner of this page to select the documentation for that version.

Considerations

Platform Support

EOL Notice

  • MongoDB 3.6.6 Community Edition removes support for Debian 7 (“Wheezy”) on x86_64

MongoDB 3.6 Community Edition supports the following 64-bit Debian releases on x86_64 architecture:

  • Debian 9 “Stretch” (Starting in MongoDB Community 3.6.5)
  • Debian 8 “Jessie”

MongoDB only supports the 64-bit versions of these platforms.

See Supported Platforms for more information.

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) - Unsupported

MongoDB does not support the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).

Production Notes

Before deploying MongoDB in a production environment, consider the Production Notes document which offers performance considerations and configuration recommendations for production MongoDB deployments.

Official MongoDB Packages

To install MongoDB Community on your Debian system, these instructions will use the official mongodb-org package, which is maintained and supported by MongoDB Inc. The official mongodb-org package always contains the latest version of MongoDB, and is available from its own dedicated repo.

Important

The mongodb package provided by Debian is not maintained by MongoDB Inc. and conflicts with the official mongodb-org package. If you have already installed the mongodb package on your Debian system, you must first uninstall the mongodb package before proceeding with these instructions.

See MongoDB Community Edition Packages for the complete list of official packages.

Install MongoDB Community Edition

Follow these steps to install MongoDB Community Edition using the apt package manager.

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-3.6.asc :

wget -qO - https://www.mongodb.org/static/pgp/server-3.6.asc | sudo apt-key add -

The operation should respond with an OK.

2

Create a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-3.6.list file for MongoDB.

Create the list file using the command appropriate for your version of Debian:

Debian 8 “Jessie” 
echo "deb http://repo.mongodb.org/apt/debian jessie/mongodb-org/3.6 main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-3.6.list
Debian 9 “Stretch” 
echo "deb http://repo.mongodb.org/apt/debian stretch/mongodb-org/3.6 main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-3.6.list

Currently packages are available for Debian 8 “Jessie” and Debian 9 “Stretch”.

3

Reload local package database.

Issue the following command to reload the local package database:

sudo apt-get update
4

Install the MongoDB packages.

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=3.6.19 mongodb-org-server=3.6.19 mongodb-org-shell=3.6.19 mongodb-org-mongos=3.6.19 mongodb-org-tools=3.6.19

If you only install mongodb-org=3.6.19 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

Run MongoDB Community Edition

ulimit Considerations
Most Unix-like operating systems limit the system resources that a session may use. These limits may negatively impact MongoDB operation. See UNIX ulimit Settings for more information.
Directories

By default, MongoDB instance stores:

  • its data files in /var/lib/mongodb
  • its log files in /var/log/mongodb

If you installed via the package manager, these default directories are created during the installation.

If you installed manually by downloading the tarballs, you can create the directories using mkdir -p <directory> or sudo mkdir -p <directory> depending on the user that will run MongoDB. (See your linux man pages for information on mkdir and sudo.)

By default, MongoDB runs using the mongodb user account. If you change the user that runs the MongoDB process, you must also modify the permission to the /var/lib/mongodb and /var/log/mongodb directories to give this user access to these directories.

To specify a different log file directory and data file directory, edit the systemLog.path and storage.dbPath settings in the /etc/mongod.conf. Ensure that the user running MongoDB has access to these directories.

Procedure

Follow these steps to run MongoDB Community Edition on your system. These instructions assume that you are using the official mongodb-org package – not the unofficial mongodb package provided by Debian – and are using the default settings.

Init System

To run and manage your mongod process, you will be using your operating system’s built-in init system. Recent versions of Linux tend to use systemd (which uses the systemctl command), while older versions of Linux tend to use System V init (which uses the service command).

If you are unsure which init system your platform uses, run the following command:

ps --no-headers -o comm 1

Then select the appropriate tab below based on the result:

  • systemd - select the systemd (systemctl) tab below.
  • init - select the System V Init (service) tab below.

  • systemd (systemctl)
  • System V Init (service)
1

Start MongoDB.

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

sudo systemctl start mongod

If you receive an error similar to the following when starting mongod:

Failed to start mongod.service: Unit mongod.service not found.

Run the following command first:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Then run the start command above again.

2

Verify that MongoDB has started successfully.

sudo systemctl status mongod

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

sudo systemctl enable mongod
3

Stop MongoDB.

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

sudo systemctl stop mongod
4

Restart MongoDB.

You can restart the mongod