Link Search Menu Expand Document
CityU TA Center

Install MongoDB

Table of contents

  1. Detect if MongoDB is installed
  2. For Windows Users
    1. Install MongoDB Community Edition
    2. Configure Environment Variables
    3. Install Tools
      1. Install mongosh
      2. Install MongoDB Database Tools
  3. For macOS Users
    1. Install MongoDB Community Edition
    2. Run MongoDB Community Edition
      1. Connect and Use MongoDB
    3. Using the MongoDB Database Tools
  4. Resources
  • Version numbers may not match with the most current version at the time of writing. If given the option to choose between stable release (long-term support) or most recent, please select the stable release rather than the beta-testing version.
  • There might be subtle discrepancies along with the steps. Please use your best judgment while going through this cookbook-style tutorial to complete each step.

Detect if MongoDB is installed

Open a terminal, if you don’t know what a terminal is, read the tutorial What’s the Terminal?. Enter the command mongo or mongosh.

If you have MongoDB installed, you will enter the MongoDB shell. Press Ctrl + C (or Command + C in macOS) to exit the shell.

If you are using Windows, it is possible that the command execution failed because your environment variables were not configured correctly. Please check your File Explorer to see if the path C:\Program Files\MongoDB\Server\5.0\bin\ exists. If exists, skip to the Configure Environment Variables section to configure your environment variables. If not, proceed to install following the tutorial.

For Windows Users

This section is based on the official MongoDB documentation. You can also watch this video to install in Windows 10.

This tutorial only applies to 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2019 / Windows 10 / Windows Server 2016 on x86_64 architecture. For other Windows platforms, please do your personal research first, and if you really can’t find a solution ask your TA to find a solution with you.

Disable Hyper-V if you want to install MongoDB on Windows using VirtualBox.

Install MongoDB Community Edition

Follow these steps to install MongoDB Community Edition using the MongoDB Installer wizard.

  1. Download the MongoDB Community .msi installer from the MongoDB Download Center.

    Please keep the .msi installer after installation, this file is also used for uninstallation.

    1. In the Version dropdown, select the newest version of MongoDB to download.
      (As of Feb 4, 2022, the latest version is 5.0.6.)
    2. In the Platform dropdown, select Windows.
    3. In the Package dropdown, select msi.
    4. Click Download.

    mongodb_download_center

  2. Run the MongoDB installer.

    For example, from the Windows Explorer/File Explorer:

    1. Go to the directory where you downloaded the MongoDB installer (.msi file). By default, this is your Downloads directory.
    2. Double-click the .msi file.

    mongodb_installer

  3. Follow the MongoDB Community Edition installation wizard.

    The wizard steps you through the installation of MongoDB and MongoDB Compass.

    1. Choose Setup Type

      You can choose either the Complete or Custom setup type. Please select Complete.

      The Complete setup option installs MongoDB and the MongoDB tools to the default location. The Custom setup option allows you to specify which executables are installed and where.

      installer_choose_setup_type

    2. Service Configuration

      Starting in MongoDB 4.0, you can set up MongoDB as a Windows service during the install or just install the binaries. Here let’s set it as a Windows service, and the MongoDB service will be started after successful installation.

      1. Select Install MongoD as a Service.
      2. Select Run the service as Network Service user.
      3. Other options are kept as default.
      4. Click Next.

      installer_service_configuration

      If you choose Run the service as a local or domain user, in order to use it in your current Windows local account, you need to keep the Account Domain as .; Account Name as your current account name; Account Password as your the password for the current account (yes, the username and password you use to log in to Windows). For a detailed explanation of these options, please read here and the official documentation.

    3. (Optional but recommended) To have the wizard install MongoDB Compass, select Install MongoDB Compass (Default). MongoDB Compass is a graphical user interface (GUI) for MongoDB.

      install_mongodb_compass

    4. When ready, click Install.

      install_confirm

    5. During the installation process, some prompts and related processing methods may appear as follows:

      1. Just a reminder that you will need to restart your computer after the installation is complete, click OK.

        reminder_restart

      2. This prompt may be that you have installed MongoDB and the MongoDB service is running. Here just check Close the applications and attempt to restart them., then click OK.

        files_in_use

      3. This prompts you to reboot. Please click Yes to restart your computer after making sure your other work (e.g. Word document, code being edited) is saved.

        restart_confirm

Configure Environment Variables

Once installed, open a new terminal and run mongo again. If you get an error like the one below, it means you didn’t set the environment variable. To exit mongo, press Ctrl + C.

# cmd
'mongo' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
# PowerShell
mongo : The term 'mongo' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
# Git Bash
bash: mongo: command not found
# Z shell
zsh: command not found: mongo

Follow this tutorial to add a C:\Program Files\MongoDB\Server\5.0\bin\ value to your PATH environment variable.

win_env_var

After you set the PATH environment variable, please open a new terminal, and run mongo again. If you did all the steps correctly, you can enter the MongoDB shell.

Install Tools

Install mongosh

This section is based on the official MongoDB documentation

The .msi installer does not include mongosh.

  1. Open the MongoDB Shell download page: MongoDB Download Center

    1. In the Platform dropdown, select Windows 64-bit (8.1+) (The first option, without the (MSI) suffix).
    2. Make sure the Package item shows zip and not msi.
    3. Click Download.

    mongosh_download

  2. Once the download is complete, open or extracts the zip archive. Extract the two executable files (.exe) in mongosh-***/bin/ in the zip file to the bin directory of the MongoDB installation directory, which is located in C:\Program Files\MongoDB\Server\5.0\bin\ by default.

    mongosh_unzip

  3. Open a new terminal and run mongosh. Open a new terminal and run mongosh. If you did all the steps correctly, you can enter the MongoDB shell. To exit the mongosh, press Ctrl + C twice.

Install MongoDB Database Tools

This section is based on the official MongoDB documentation.

The MongoDB Database Tools are a collection of command-line utilities for working with a MongoDB deployment. The Database Tools include binaries mongodump, mongorestore, bsondump, mongoimport, mongoexport, mongostat, mongotop, and mongofiles.

If you are missing these tools, please refer to here to install them. Please use the Zip Archive method to install, put the files in the bin folder in the zip archive into the bin directory in the MongoDB installation path, which is located in C:\Program Files\MongoDB\Server\5.0\bin\ by default.

install_db_tools_zip_archive

db_tools_unzip

For macOS Users

This section is based on the official MongoDB documentation.

Use this tutorial to install MongoDB 5.0 Community Edition on macOS using the third-party Homebrew package manager. MongoDB 5.0 Community Edition supports macOS 10.14 or later.

If you are using an older version of macOS, please install an older version of MongoDB Community. Please do your own research on how to install it, or use the version drop-down menu in the upper left corner of the current MongoDB document to select the documentation for that version.

Install MongoDB Community Edition

  1. macOS does not include the Homebrew brew package by default. First you need to install Homebrew, follow the steps of this tutorial to install Homebrew.

    Type the following in the terminal to update Homebrew.

    $ brew update

  2. Tap the MongoDB Homebrew Tap to download the official Homebrew formula for MongoDB and the Database Tools, by running the following command in your macOS Terminal:

    $ brew tap mongodb/brew

    If you have already done this for a previous installation of MongoDB, you can skip this step.

  3. To install MongoDB, run the following command in your macOS Terminal application:

    $ brew install mongodb-community@5.0

    Alternatively, you can specify a previous version of MongoDB if desired. You can also maintain multiple versions of MongoDB side by side in this manner.

    If you have previously installed an older version of the formula, you may encounter a ChecksumMismatchError. To resolve, see Troubleshooting ChecksumMismatchError.

Run MongoDB Community Edition

Follow these steps to run MongoDB Community Edition. These instructions assume that you are using the default settings.

You can run MongoDB as a macOS service using brew, or you can run MongoDB manually as a background process. It is recommended to run MongoDB as a macOS service, as doing so sets the correct system ulimit values automatically (see ulimit settings for more information).

  • To run MongoDB (i.e. the mongod process) as a macOS service, run:

    $ brew services start mongodb-community@5.0

    To stop a mongod running as a macOS service, use the following command as needed:

    $ brew services stop mongodb-community@5.0

  • To run MongoDB (i.e. the mongod process) manually as a background process, run:

    • For macOS running Intel processors:

      $ mongod --config /usr/local/etc/mongod.conf --fork

    • For macOS running on Apple M1 processors:

      $ mongod --config /opt/homebrew/etc/mongod.conf --fork

      To stop a mongod running as a background process, connect to the mongod using mongosh, and issue the shutdown command as needed.

Both methods use the mongod.conf file created during the install. You can add your own MongoDB configuration options to this file as well.

macOS Prevents mongod From Opening

macOS may prevent mongod from running after installation. If you receive a security error when starting mongod indicating that the developer could not be identified or verified, do the following to grant mongod access to run:

  • Open System Preferences
  • Select the Security and Privacy pane.
  • Under the General tab, click the button to the right of the message about mongod, labelled either Open Anyway or Allow Anyway depending on your version of macOS.

To verify that MongoDB is running, perform one of the following:

  • If you started MongoDB as a macOS service:

    $ brew services list

    You should see the service mongodb-community listed as started.

  • If you started MongoDB manually as a background process:

    $ ps aux | grep -v grep | grep mongod

    You should see your mongod process in the output.

You can also view the log file to see the current status of your mongod process: /usr/local/var/log/mongodb/mongo.log.

Connect and Use MongoDB

To begin using MongoDB, connect mongosh to the running instance. From a new terminal, issue the following:

$ mongosh

macOS Prevents mongosh From Opening

macOS may prevent mongosh from running after installation. If you receive a security error when starting mongosh indicating that the developer could not be identified or verified, do the following to grant mongosh access to run:

  • Open System Preferences
  • Select the Security and Privacy pane.
  • Under the General tab, click the button to the right of the message about mongosh, labelled either Open Anyway or Allow Anyway depending on your version of macOS.

For information on CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations, see:

Using the MongoDB Database Tools

Starting in MongoDB 4.4.1, installing MongoDB via brew also installs the MongoDB Database Tools.

The MongoDB Database Tools are a collection of command-line utilities for working with a MongoDB deployment, including data backup and import/export tools like mongoimport and mongodump as well as monitoring tools like mongotop.

Once you have installed the MongoDB Server in the steps above, the Database Tools are available directly from the command line in your macOS Terminal application. For example you could run mongotop against your running MongoDB instance by invoking it in your macOS Terminal like so:

$ mongotop

It should start up, connect to your running mongod, and start reporting usage statistics.

See the MongoDB Database Tools Documentation for usage information for each of the Database Tools.

Resources