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MongoDB basic operations lab

Overview

The objective of this lab is to execute some basic MongoDB operations in a MongoDB deployment.
We will be performing some of the following basic operations.

  1. Backup a MongoDB database
  2. Drop a database
  3. Restore the database
  4. Shutdown a MongoDB Enterprise
  5. Startup a MongoDB Enterprise

MongoDB basic operations steps

Backup a MongoDB database

Make sure you are connected to the Linux guest from the previous step.

In this lab we are going to use the mongodump utility to backup our lab database "labtest".

Enter the following command to save the backup of the labtest database inside /tmp directory

   mongodump -v --db labtest --out /tmp
The following is an example where the terminal will show that the database dump is taken [click to expand me] 
[root@p1243-zvm1 MongoDB-Wildfire-Workshop]# mongodump -v --db labtest --out /tmp
2025-03-13T17:05:10.012-0400    dumping up to 1 collections in parallel
2025-03-13T17:05:10.020-0400    writing labtest.employee to /tmp/labtest/employee.bson
2025-03-13T17:05:10.022-0400    done dumping labtest.employee (2 documents)
[root@p1243-zvm1 MongoDB-Wildfire-Workshop]#

Enter the following command to list the /tmp/labtest directory 

   ls -alF /tmp/labtest/
The following is an example where the terminal will show that the database dump is taken inside /tmp/labtest directory [click to expand me] 
[root@p1243-zvm1 MongoDB-Wildfire-Workshop]# ls -alF /tmp/labtest/
total 16
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Mar 13 17:05 ./
drwxrwxrwt. 5 root root 4096 Mar 13 17:11 ../
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  128 Mar 13 17:05 employee.bson
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  175 Mar 13 17:05 employee.metadata.json
[root@p1243-zvm1 MongoDB-Wildfire-Workshop]#

Drop a MongoDB database

In this lab we are going to use the db.dropDatabase() utility to drop our database "labtest". First let us connect to mongosh and list the databases in the environment by using show dbs command

Enter the following commands to connect to MongoDB and list the databases

   mongosh;
   show dbs
The following is an example where the terminal will show that there are four databases in the deployment [Click to expand me] 
Enterprise test> show dbs
admin    40.00 KiB
config   72.00 KiB
labtest  72.00 KiB
local    40.00 KiB
Enterprise test>

Now connect to the "labtest" database, drop that database by db.dropDatabase() utility and then list the databases by entering the following series of commands

   use labtest
   db.dropDatabase()
   show dbs
The following is an example where the terminal will show that there are only three databases in the deployment [Click to expand me] 
Enterprise test> use labtest
switched to db labtest
Enterprise labtest> db.dropDatabase();
{ ok: 1, dropped: 'labtest' }
Enterprise labtest> show dbs
admin    40.00 KiB
config  108.00 KiB
local    40.00 KiB
Enterprise labtest>

Now let us exit the mongosh shell environment by issuing exit command

      exit

Restore a MongoDB database

In this part of the lab we are going to use the mongorestore utility to restore our deleted lab database "labtest".

Enter the following command to restore the backup of the labtest database available inside /tmp directory

   mongorestore -v --db labtest  --drop  /tmp/labtest
The following is an example where the terminal will show that the database dump is restored [click to expand me] 
   [root@p1243-zvm1 MongoDB-Wildfire-Workshop]#    mongorestore -v --db labtest  --drop  /tmp/labtest
   2025-03-14T14:27:41.092-0400    using write concern: &{majority <nil> 0s}
   2025-03-14T14:27:41.096-0400    The --db and --collection flags are deprecated for this use-case; please use --nsInclude instead, i.e. with --nsInclude=${DATABASE}.${COLLECTION}
   2025-03-14T14:27:41.096-0400    building a list of collections to restore from /tmp/labtest dir
   2025-03-14T14:27:41.096-0400    found collection labtest.employee bson to restore to labtest.employee
   2025-03-14T14:27:41.096-0400    found collection metadata from labtest.employee to restore to labtest.employee
   2025-03-14T14:27:41.096-0400    reading metadata for labtest.employee from /tmp/labtest/employee.metadata.json
   2025-03-14T14:27:41.096-0400    creating collection labtest.employee with no metadata
   2025-03-14T14:27:41.102-0400    restoring labtest.employee from /tmp/labtest/employee.bson
   2025-03-14T14:27:41.113-0400    finished restoring labtest.employee (2 documents, 0 failures)
   2025-03-14T14:27:41.113-0400    no indexes to restore for collection labtest.employee
   2025-03-14T14:27:41.113-0400    2 document(s) restored successfully. 0 document(s) failed to restore.
   [root@p1243-zvm1 MongoDB-Wildfire-Workshop]#

Let us connect back to mongosh and list the databases in the environment by using show dbs command

Enter the following command to connect to MongoDB and list the databases and then connect to labtest database and find the documents

   mongosh
   show dbs
   use labtest
   db.employee.find()
The following is an example where the terminal will show that the database dump is restored [click to expand me] 
Enterprise test> show dbs
admin    40.00 KiB
config   96.00 KiB
labtest  40.00 KiB
local    40.00 KiB
Enterprise test> use labtest
switched to db labtest
Enterprise labtest> db.employee.find()
[
{
   _id: ObjectId('67d46f56d027864d37a63a58'),
   name: 'John Doe',
   number: 1000,
   lastUpdated: ISODate('2025-03-14T18:03:35.947Z')
},
{
   _id: ObjectId('67d46f61d027864d37a63a5a'),
   name: 'Super Man',
   number: 2000
}
]
Enterprise labtest>

Shutdown MongoDB Enterprise

In this part of the lab we are going to shutdown MongoDB by using db.shutdownServer(). You must issue the db.shutdownServer() operation against the admin database.

Enter the following commands 

   use admin
   db.shutdownServer()
   exit
The following is an example where the terminal will show that there are four databases in the deployment [Click to expand me] 
Enterprise labtest> use admin
switched to db admin
Enterprise admin> db.shutdownServer()
MongoNetworkError: connection 4 to 127.0.0.1:27017 closed
Enterprise admin> exit
[root@p1243-zvm1 MongoDB-Wildfire-Workshop]#

Start a MongoDB Enterprise

In this part of the lab we are going to start MongoDB Enterprise. We need to specify the following parameters: Data, log file and specify the fork option to start the mongod in the background. Then we will connect to mongosh shell.

Enter the following commands 

   mongod  --dbpath /var/lib/mongodb --logpath /var/log/mongodb/mongod.log --fork --bind_ip_all
   mongosh
The following is an example where the terminal will show that the MongoDB is started and waiting for connections [Click to expand me] 
[root@p1243-zvm1 MongoDB-Wildfire-Workshop]#    mongod  --dbpath /var/lib/mongodb --logpath /var/log/mongodb/mongod.log --fork --bind_ip_all
about to fork child process, waiting until server is ready for connections.
forked process: 112970
child process started successfully, parent exiting
[root@p1243-zvm1 MongoDB-Wildfire-Workshop]#mongosh
Current Mongosh Log ID: 67d49ba95b1ee08487a63a57
Connecting to:          mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/?directConnection=true&serverSelectionTimeoutMS=2000&appName=mongosh+2.4.2
Using MongoDB:          7.0.17
Using Mongosh:          2.4.2

For mongosh info see: https://www.mongodb.com/docs/mongodb-shell/

------
   The server generated these startup warnings when booting
   2025-03-14T16:56:05.980-04:00: Using the XFS filesystem is strongly recommended with the WiredTiger storage engine. See http://dochub.mongodb.org/core/prodnotes-filesystem
   2025-03-14T16:56:06.187-04:00: Access control is not enabled for the database. Read and write access to data and configuration is unrestricted
   2025-03-14T16:56:06.187-04:00: You are running this process as the root user, which is not recommended
   2025-03-14T16:56:06.187-04:00: /sys/kernel/mm/transparent_hugepage/enabled is 'always'. We suggest setting it to 'never' in this binary version
   2025-03-14T16:56:06.187-04:00: Soft rlimits for open file descriptors too low
------

Enterprise test>

In this part of the lab we will shutdown MongoDB by using db.shutdownServer(). You must issue the db.shutdownServer() operation against the admin database.

Enter the following commands 

      use admin
      db.shutdownServer()
      exit
The following is an example of shutdown [Click to expand me]

``` Enterprise test> use admin switched to db admin Enterprise admin> db.shutdownServer() MongoNetworkError: connection 4 to 127.0.0.1:27017 closed Enterprise admin> exit [root@p1243-zvm1 MongoDB-Wildfire-Workshop]#

Summary

In this lab we have executed some basic MongoDB commands in a MongoDB deployment using mongosh shell environment.