unable to start MongoDB server

Question

I installed MongoDB in wsl using the official windows document here. I have created a path and can start the a DB instance using

sudo mongod --dbpath ~/data/db

but after following the docs further and adding the init script from here to start MongoDB as a service, and running this command

sudo service mongodb start

returns output:

* Starting database mongod                                                                                                             [fail]

and as expected when I run,

sudo service mongodb status

I have the output

* Checking status of database mongod                                                                                                          
* apparently not running
                                                                                                                                   [fail]

now, how do I solve this?

Is that the full output in the console of your `service start` command? Is there anything in the `mongod` log file when you try this? — user20042973, Oct 11 '22 at 13:39
Running `sudo mongod ...` and `sudo service mongodb start` basially starts the mongod twice, which is not possible. — Wernfried Domscheit, Oct 11 '22 at 14:51
Did you check the logfile? Typically at `/var/log/mongodb/mongod.log` — Wernfried Domscheit, Oct 11 '22 at 15:41
{"t":{"$date":"2022-10-18T15:09:19.166+05:00"},"s":"I", "c":"CONTROL", "id":23330, "ctx":"main","msg":"ERROR: Cannot write pid file to {path_string}: {errAndStr_second}","attr":{"path_string":"/var/run/mongod.pid","errAndStr_second":"Permission denied"}} This seems to be the error — Mudassir Aqeel Ahmed, Oct 18 '22 at 10:10
Maybe you should better follow the official documentation: [Install MongoDB Community Edition on Ubuntu](https://www.mongodb.com/docs/manual/tutorial/install-mongodb-on-ubuntu/) — Wernfried Domscheit, Oct 18 '22 at 12:26

MaxySpark · Answer 1 · 2023-02-28T05:30:28.740

I was getting the same error.

I think owner for this file was root.

when I checked ls -l inside /var/run directory I got this

drwxrwxrwt 2 root    root     40 Jan  2 19:53 lock
drwxr-xr-x 2 mongodb mongodb  60 Jan  2 20:16 mongodb
-rw-r--r-- 1 root    root     6 Jan  2 20:35 mongod.pid
drwxr-xr-x 2 root    root     40 Jan  2 20:00 needrestart
drwxrwxrwt 2 root    root     40 Jan  2 19:53 shm
drwx--x--x 3 root    root     60 Jan  2 19:53 sudo
drwxr-xr-x 2 root    root     40 Jan  2 19:53 user
drwxr-xr-x 2 root    root    140 Jan  2 20:19 WSL

sudo chown mongodb:mongodb /var/run/mongod.pid

after running this issue was resolved

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 25 '22 at 07:45

I suppose you do something like this

wget -qO - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mongodb/mongo/master/debian/init.d > /etc/init.d/mongod && chmod +x /etc/init.d/mongod

I had this problem to. At the time of writing the HEAD of that file seems broken. You can try:

wget -qO - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mongodb/mongo/cad54eb5ebdff24ecec53b56788cd151d8d64272/debian/init.d > /etc/init.d/mongod && chmod +x /etc/init.d/mongod

to get the previous version

unable to start MongoDB server

2 Answers2