mongosh

What it does

How to write it

mongosh "mongodb://USER@HOST:27017/DB?authSource=admin" [--eval JS]
mongodump --uri URI --out DIR

Main parts

Shell commands

show dbs / use DB / show collections

Navigate.

db.coll.find(filter).limit(n)

Read documents.

db.coll.insertOne({...}) / updateOne / deleteOne

Change documents.

db.coll.countDocuments(filter)

Count.

db.coll.createIndex({field: 1})

Make an index.

db.createUser({...})

New user with roles.

db.serverStatus() / db.stats()

Health and size.

db.currentOp()

Running operations.

Most used

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$ run as a normal user# run as root (or with sudo)

1. 1Connect

   $mongosh "mongodb://admin@db1.lab.local:27017/?authSource=admin"

2. 2Turn on access control

   #cat /etc/mongod.conf
   net:
     bindIp: 127.0.0.1,10.20.2.30
   security:
     authorization: enabled
   #systemctl restart mongod

3. 3Create an app user with one role

   $mongosh admin --eval 'db.createUser({user: "shop", pwd: passwordPrompt(), roles: [{role: "readWrite", db: "shop"}]})'

4. 4Query documents

   $mongosh shop --quiet --eval 'db.orders.find({status: "open"}, {_id: 0, id: 1, total: 1}).limit(5)'
   $mongosh shop --quiet --eval 'db.orders.countDocuments({status: "open"})'

5. 5Make an index for a slow query

   $mongosh shop --eval 'db.orders.createIndex({status: 1, createdAt: -1})'
   $mongosh shop --eval 'db.orders.find({status: "open"}).explain("executionStats").executionStats.totalDocsExamined'

6. 6Back up and restore

   $mongodump --uri "mongodb://backup@db1:27017/?authSource=admin" --gzip --archive=shop-$(date +%F).gz --db shop
   $mongorestore --uri "mongodb://admin@db2:27017/?authSource=admin" --gzip --archive=shop-2026-10-27.gz --drop

7. 7Check server health

   $mongosh --quiet --eval 'db.serverStatus().connections'
   $mongosh --quiet --eval 'rs.status().members.map(m => [m.name, m.stateStr])'

8. 8Find long operations

   $mongosh --quiet --eval 'db.currentOp({secs_running: {$gt: 10}}).inprog.map(o => [o.opid, o.secs_running, o.ns])'

9. 9Run in a container for a lab

   $podman run -d --name mongo -p 127.0.0.1:27017:27017 -e MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_USERNAME=admin -e MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_PASSWORD=labonly docker.io/library/mongo:8.0

10. 10Use TLS

    $mongosh "mongodb://shop@db1.lab.local:27017/shop" --tls --tlsCAFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/lab-ca.crt

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Files

/etc/mongod.conf

Server config.

/var/lib/mongo/

Data (RHEL packages).

~/.mongodb/mongosh/

Shell history (may contain secrets).

Exit codes