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Back Up and Restore with MongoDB Tools¶
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This tutorial describes the process for creating backups and restoring data
using the utilities provided with MongoDB. The mongodump
and mongorestore utilities work with
BSON data dumps, and are useful for creating
backups of small deployments. For resilient and non-disruptive backups, use a
file system or block-level disk snapshot function, such as the methods
described in the MongoDB Backup Methods document.
Because mongodump and mongorestore operate by
interacting with a running mongod instance, they can impact
the performance of your running database. Not only do the tools create
traffic for a running database instance, they also force the database to
read all data through memory. When MongoDB reads infrequently used data,
it can evict more frequently accessed data, causing a deterioration
in performance for the database’s regular workload.
When backing up your data with MongoDB’s tools, consider the following guidelines:
- Label files so that you can identify the contents of the backup as well as the point in time that the backup reflects.
- Use an alternative backup strategy such as Filesystem
Snapshots or
MongoDB Cloud Manager if the
performance impact of
mongodumpandmongorestoreis unacceptable for your use case. - Use
--oplogto capture incoming write operations during themongodumpoperation to ensure that the backups reflect a consistent data state. - Ensure that your backups are usable by restoring them to a test MongoDB deployment.
See also
MongoDB Backup Methods and MongoDB Cloud Manager Backup documentation for more information on backing up MongoDB instances. Additionally, consider the following reference documentation for the MongoDB import/export tools:
Binary BSON Dumps¶
The mongorestore and mongodump utilities work with
BSON data dumps, and are useful for creating
backups of small deployments. For resilient and non-disruptive backups, use a
file system or block-level disk snapshot function, such as the methods
described in the MongoDB Backup Methods document.
Use these tools for backups if other backup methods, such as MongoDB Cloud Manager or file system snapshots are unavailable.
Procedures¶
Back Up a Database with mongodump¶
Required Access¶
To run mongodump against a MongoDB deployment that has
access control enabled, you must have
privileges that grant find action for each database to
back up. The built-in backup role provides the required
privileges to perform backup of any and all databases.
Changed in version 3.2.1: The backup role provides additional privileges to back
up the system.profile
collections that exist when running with database profiling. Previously, users required an additional
read access on this collection.
Basic mongodump Operations¶
The mongodump utility backs up data by connecting to a
running mongod or mongos instance.
The utility can create a backup for an entire server, database or collection, or can use a query to backup just part of a collection.
When you run mongodump without any arguments, the command
connects to the MongoDB instance on the local system
(e.g. 127.0.0.1 or localhost) on port 27017 and creates a
database backup named dump/ in the current directory.
To backup data from a mongod or mongos instance
running on the same machine and on the default port of 27017,
use the following command:
The data format used by mongodump from version 2.2 or
later is incompatible with earlier versions of mongod.
Do not use recent versions of mongodump to back up older
data stores.
You can also specify the --host and
--port of the MongoDB instance that the
mongodump should connect to. For example:
mongodump will write BSON files that hold a copy of
data accessible via the mongod listening on port 27017 of
the mongodb.example.net host. See Create Backups from Non-Local mongod Instances for more
information.
To specify a different output directory, you can use the --out
or -o option:
To limit the amount of data included in the database dump, you can
specify --db and
--collection as options to
mongodump. For example:
This operation creates a dump of the collection named myCollection
from the database test in a dump/ subdirectory of the
current working directory.
mongodump overwrites output files if they exist in the
backup data folder. Before running the mongodump command
multiple times, either ensure that you no longer need the files in the
output folder (the default is the dump/ folder) or rename the
folders or files.
Point in Time Operation Using Oplogs¶
Use the --oplog option with
mongodump to collect the oplog entries to build a
point-in-time snapshot of a database within a replica set. With --oplog, mongodump copies all the data from
the source database as well as all of the oplog entries from
the beginning to the end of the backup procedure. This operation, in
conjunction with mongorestore --oplogReplay,
allows you to restore a backup that reflects the specific
moment in time that corresponds to when mongodump completed
creating the dump file.
Create Backups from Non-Local mongod Instances¶
The --host and
--port options for
mongodump allow you to connect to and backup from a remote host.
Consider the following example:
On any mongodump command you may, as above, specify username
and password credentials to specify database authentication.
Restore a Database with mongorestore¶
Access Control¶
To restore data to a MongoDB deployment that has access control enabled, the restore role provides
the necessary privileges to restore data from backups if the data does
not include system.profile
collection data and you run mongorestore without the
--oplogReplay option.
If the backup data includes system.profile collection data or you run with
--oplogReplay, you need
additional privileges:
system.profile |
If the backup data includes Both the built-in roles |
--oplogReplay |
To run with Grant only to users who must run |
Basic mongorestore Operations¶
The mongorestore utility restores a binary backup created by
mongodump. By default, mongorestore looks for a
database backup in the dump/ directory.
The mongorestore utility restores data by connecting to a
running mongod or mongos directly.
mongorestore can restore either an entire database backup
or a subset of the backup.
To use mongorestore to connect to an active
mongod or mongos, use a command with the following prototype form:
Consider the following example:
Here, mongorestore imports the database backup in
the dump-2013-10-25 directory to the mongod instance
running on the localhost interface on the default port 27017.
Restore Point in Time Oplog Backup¶
If you created your database dump using the --oplog option to ensure a point-in-time snapshot, call
mongorestore with the
--oplogReplay
option, as in the following example:
You may also consider using the mongorestore --objcheck
option to check the integrity of objects while inserting them into the
database, or you may consider the mongorestore --drop option to drop each
collection from the database before restoring from
backups.
Restore Backups to Non-Local mongod Instances¶
By default, mongorestore connects to a MongoDB instance
running on the localhost interface (e.g. 127.0.0.1) and on the
default port (27017). If you want to restore to a different host or
port, use the --host and --port options.
Consider the following example:
As above, you may specify username and password connections if your
mongod requires authentication.