command line authentication of mongo fails

Question

I am running mongo 2.2.2 on osx.

When I do the following authentication is going fine:

$ mongo
>> use admin
>> db.auth("uname", "password")

log:

Thu Mar  7 13:51:08 [initandlisten] connection accepted from 127.0.0.1:63474 #10 (4 connections now open)
Thu Mar  7 13:51:08 [conn10]  authenticate db: admin { authenticate: 1, nonce: "123", user: "uname", key: "456" }

However when I try to authenticate directly from the commandline:

$ mongo admin -u uname -p password

I get the following error:

Thu Mar  7 14:25:52 [initandlisten] connection accepted from 127.0.0.1:63939 #12 (5 connections now open)
Thu Mar  7 14:25:52 [conn12]  authenticate db: admin { authenticate: 1, nonce: "789", user: "uname", key: "147" }
Thu Mar  7 14:25:52 [conn12] auth: key mismatch uname, ns:admin
Thu Mar  7 14:25:52 [conn12] end connection 127.0.0.1:63939 (4 connections now open)

Does anyone know what causes this?

score 136 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 07 '13 at 04:10

136

A password containing special characters, especially the dollar sign, has to be put in single quotes to protect them from the command shell:

$ mongo admin -u uname -p 'password'

answered Apr 07 '13 at 04:10

ronasta

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As explained [here](http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/29980/whats-the-difference-between-single-and-double-quotes-in-the-bash-shell/) – RickyA Apr 07 '13 at 09:54
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To prevent exposing password to bash history, use `mongo admin -u uname -p` which will prompt you the password – Kimmo Dec 10 '14 at 11:45
1

@Kimmo Your comment is an answer in its own right. The password prompt you get with `-p` does not require protecting/escaping special characters, so the password can just be entered with no quote marks. I'll upvote that answer, which includes the added security bonus! – WAF Jan 11 '17 at 18:07
could not imagine how much official documents is confusing for this basic command! – Bheid Aug 25 '21 at 13:23
I needed to put the password in double quotation marks, single did not work – Berger Jun 07 '23 at 12:03

score 58 · Answer 2 · edited May 12 '21 at 05:28

58

You have to use the --authenticationDatabase to indicate mongodb where to find the user you have created. For example:

mongo admin -u uname -p 'password' --authenticationDatabase admin

edited May 12 '21 at 05:28

splash

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answered Apr 04 '16 at 10:49

user6155548

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The above command has to be run exactly as it is, barring the value for `uname` and `password`. – Binita Bharati Jan 13 '21 at 16:34

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 29 '18 at 10:35

2

This is the way to access an authenticate MongoDB database from terminal

mongo -u user_name -p "your_password" host_name/database_name

Ex:

mongo -u hasib -p "123456" localhost/my_db

answered Jul 29 '18 at 10:35

Hasib Kamal Chowdhury

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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 11 '22 at 12:59

You could also connect using the mongo connection URL as follow:

mongo "mongodb://<user>:<password>@<host: 127.0.0.1>:<port: 27017>/<db_name>?authSource=admin"

The db_name is optional.
The host is usually 127.0.0.1 if you are connection to localhost.
The port is usually 27017.

score -9 · Answer 5 · edited Aug 07 '18 at 11:19

-9

To Login to MongoDB Via Command Line do the following

$ mongo admin -u 'username' -p 'Password'

edited Aug 07 '18 at 11:19

hakamairi

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answered Aug 07 '18 at 08:49

Prashanth Muthurajaiah

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Your exact same response has been given on 2013! – Alireza Jul 31 '19 at 05:51

command line authentication of mongo fails

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