service mongod cant start, permission denied mongod.lock when changing dbpath

Question

What i want to do: change dbpath of mongodb from /var/lib/mongodb to /home/user/mongodb/data

im using db version v3.4.7

what i've done

mkdir -p ~/mongodb/data
sudo chown -R mongodb:mongodb  /home/user/mongodb

change /etc/mongodb.conf

storage:
  dbPath: /home/user/mongodb/data/
  journal:

sudo mongod -f /etc/mongod.conf 

this works. Also tried

sudo mongod --dbpath /home/user/mongodb/data/ 

command works fine

sudo service mongod start

command fails. checking the log file.

Permission denied: "/home/user/mongodb/data/mongod.lock", terminating

what is going on? I've tried everything i know. even tried setting chmod 777 to the lock file, and still has permission denied.

Answer 1

If you now command:

sudo chown -R mongodb:mongodb  /home/user/mongodb
sudo service mongod restart

It will work!

Problems here was that you gave command sudo mongod --dbpath /home/user/mongodb/data/ what created ROOT ownded files to that /home/user/mongodb/data/ directory and your "normal" mongodb user don't have right to overwrite those.

So, NEVER start your mongod as root OR if you do so, remember reset ownership of those data files back to mongodb.

Answer 2

I execute "sudo mongod --dbpath /path/to/mongo" on Centos 7 with Mongo 4 and that's ok but to repair or work as here recommended, you must remove and install.

When you remove you make sure that the execute the correct command to start over:

• sudo yum remove mongodb-org* (to delete all configuration)

Then reinstall and continue:

• sudo yum install -y mongodb-org
• sudo systemctl stop mongod
• mv /var/lib/mongo /{path}/mongo
• sudo vi /etc/mongod.conf (inline dbPath change the path to "/{path}/mongo")
• chown mongod:mongod -R /{path}/mongo/
• sudo systemctl start mongod

Answer 3

Change path in mongodb in redhat 8

Eg: Your new location should be inside /new_drive

create new directory inside /new_drive

cd  /new_drive 
sudo mkdir database

make user as mongod in new path

sudo chown -R mongod:mongod database

Update SELinux policy (This is important) details here

sudo semanage fcontext -a -t mongod_var_lib_t ./database.*
sudo chcon -Rv -u system_u -t mongod_var_lib_t  /database
restorecon -R -v /database

if there is any problem add these command:

/sbin/restorecon -v /database/*
sudo ausearch -c 'mongod' --raw | audit2allow -M my-mongod
sudo semodule -X 300 -i my-mongod.pp

Restart mongo

sudo systemctl restart mongod

Answer 4

In my case when using mongodb-community in MacOS.

$ sudo chown -R root:admin /usr/local/var/mongodb