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mongorestore

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Synopsis

The mongorestore program writes data from a binary database dump created by mongodump to a MongoDB instance. mongorestore can create a new database or add data to an existing database.

mongorestore can write data to either mongod or mongos instances, in addition to writing directly to MongoDB data files without an active mongod.

If you restore to an existing database, mongorestore will only insert into the existing database, and does not perform updates of any kind. If existing documents have the same value _id field in the target database and collection, mongorestore will not overwrite those documents.

Remember the following properties of mongorestore behavior:

  • mongorestore recreates indexes recorded by mongodump.

  • all operations are inserts, not updates.

  • mongorestore does not wait for a response from a mongod to ensure that the MongoDB process has received or recorded the operation.

    The mongod will record any errors to its log that occur during a restore operation, but mongorestore will not receive errors.

Warning

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.

Options

mongorestore
--help

Returns a basic help and usage text.

--verbose, -v

Increases the amount of internal reporting returned on the command line. Increase the verbosity with the -v form by including the option multiple times (e.g. -vvvvv).

--version

Returns the version of the mongorestore tool.

--host <hostname><:port>

Specifies a resolvable hostname for the mongod to which you want to restore the database. By default mongorestore will attempt to connect to a MongoDB process running on the localhost port number 27017. For an example of --host, see Restore a Database with mongorestore.

Optionally, specify a port number to connect a MongoDB instance running on a port other than 27017.

To connect to a replica set, you can specify the replica set seed name, and a seed list of set members, in the following format:

copy 
<replica_set_name>/<hostname1><:port>,<hostname2:<port>,...
--port <port>

Specifies the port number, if the MongoDB instance is not running on the standard port (i.e. 27017). You may also specify a port number using the --host command. For an example of --port, see Restore a Database with mongorestore.

--ipv6

Enables IPv6 support that allows mongorestore to connect to the MongoDB instance using an IPv6 network. All MongoDB programs and processes, including mongorestore, disable IPv6 support by default.

--ssl

New in version 2.4: MongoDB added support for SSL connections to mongod instances in mongorestore.

Note

SSL support in mongorestore is not compiled into the default distribution of MongoDB. See Connect to MongoDB with SSL for more information on SSL and MongoDB.

Additionally, mongorestore does not support connections to mongod instances that require client certificate validation.

Allows mongorestore to connect to mongod instance over an SSL connection.

--username <username>, -u <username>

Specifies a username to authenticate to the MongoDB instance, if your database requires authentication. Use in conjunction with the --password option to supply a password. For an example of --username, see Restore a Database with mongorestore.

--password <password>, -p <password>

Specifies a password to authenticate to the MongoDB instance. Use in conjunction with the --username option to supply a username. For an example of --password, see Restore a Database with mongorestore.

If you specify a --username and do not pass an argument to --password, mongorestore will prompt for a password interactively. If you do not specify a password on the command line, --password must be the last argument specified.

--authenticationDatabase <dbname>

New in version 2.4.

Specifies the database that holds the user’s (e.g --username) credentials.

By default, mongorestore assumes that the database specified to the --db argument holds the user’s credentials, unless you specify --authenticationDatabase.

See userSource, system.users Privilege Documents and User Privilege Roles in MongoDB for more information about delegated authentication in MongoDB.

--authenticationMechanism <name>

New in version 2.4.

Specifies the authentication mechanism. By default, the authentication mechanism is MONGODB-CR, which is the MongoDB challenge/response authentication mechanism. In MongoDB Enterprise, mongorestore also includes support for GSSAPI to handle Kerberos authentication.

See Deploy MongoDB with Kerberos Authentication for more information about Kerberos authentication.

--dbpath <path>

Specifies the directory of the MongoDB data files. If used, the --dbpath option enables mongorestore to attach directly to local data files and insert the data without the mongod. To run with --dbpath, mongorestore needs to lock access to the data directory: as a result, no mongod can access the same path while the process runs. For an example of --dbpath, see Restore Without a Running mongod.

--directoryperdb

Use the --directoryperdb in conjunction with the corresponding option to mongod, which allows mongorestore to import data into MongoDB instances that have every database’s files saved in discrete directories on the disk. This option is only relevant when specifying the --dbpath option.

--journal

Allows mongorestore to write to the durability journal to ensure that the data files will remain valid during the write process. This option is only relevant when specifying the --dbpath option. For an example of --journal, see Restore Without a Running mongod.

--db <db>, -d <db>

Use the --db option to specify a database for mongorestore to restore data into. If the database doesn’t exist, mongorestore will create the specified database. If you do not specify a <db>, mongorestore creates new databases that correspond to the databases where data originated and data may be overwritten. Use this option to restore data into a MongoDB instance that already has data.

--db does not control which BSON files mongorestore restores. You must use the mongorestore path option to limit that restored data.

--collection <collection>, -c <collection>

Use the --collection option to specify a collection for mongorestore to restore. If you do not specify a <collection>, mongorestore imports all collections created. Existing data may be overwritten. Use this option to restore data into a MongoDB instance that already has data, or to restore only some data in the specified imported data set.

--objcheck

Forces the mongorestore to validate all requests from clients upon receipt to ensure that clients never insert invalid documents into the database. For objects with a high degree of sub-document nesting, --objcheck can have a small impact on performance. You can set --noobjcheck to disable object checking at run-time.

Changed in version 2.4: MongoDB enables --objcheck by default, to prevent any client from inserting malformed or invalid BSON into a MongoDB database.

--noobjcheck

New in version 2.4.

Disables the default document validation that MongoDB performs on all incoming BSON documents.

--filter '<JSON>'

Limits the documents that mongorestore imports to only those documents that match the JSON document specified as '<JSON>'. Be sure to include the document in single quotes to avoid interaction with your system’s shell environment. For an example of --filter, see Restore a Subset of data from a Binary Database Dump.

--drop

Before restoring the collections from the dumped backup, drops the collections from the target database. --drop does not drop collections that are not in the backup.

--oplogReplay

Replays the oplog after restoring the dump to ensure that the current state of the database reflects the point-in-time backup captured with the “mongodump --oplog” command. For an example of --oplogReplay, see Restore Point in Time Oplog Backup.

--keepIndexVersion

Prevents mongorestore from upgrading the index to the latest version during the restoration process.

--w <number of replicas per write>

New in version 2.2.

Specifies the write concern for each write operation that mongorestore writes to the target database. By default, mongorestore does not wait for a response for write acknowledgment.

--noOptionsRestore

New in version 2.2.

Prevents mongorestore from setting the collection options, such as those specified by the collMod database command, on restored collections.

--noIndexRestore

New in version 2.2.

Prevents mongorestore from restoring and building indexes as specified in the corresponding mongodump output.

--oplogLimit <timestamp>

New in version 2.2.

Prevents mongorestore from applying oplog entries newer than the <timestamp>. Specify <timestamp> values in the form of <time_t>:<ordinal>, where <time_t> is the seconds since the UNIX epoch, and <ordinal> represents a counter of operations in the oplog that occurred in the specified second.

You must use --oplogLimit in conjunction with the --oplogReplay option.

<path>

The final argument of the mongorestore command is a directory path. This argument specifies the location of the database dump from which to restore.

Usage

See Back Up and Restore with MongoDB Tools for a larger overview of mongorestore usage. Also see the mongodump document for an overview of the mongodump, which provides the related inverse functionality.

Consider the following example:

copy 
mongorestore --collection people --db accounts dump/accounts/people.bson

Here, mongorestore reads the database dump in the dump/ sub-directory of the current directory, and restores only the documents in the collection named people from the database named accounts. mongorestore restores data to the instance running on the localhost interface on port 27017.

In the next example, mongorestore restores a backup of the database instance located in dump to a database instance stored in the /srv/mongodb on the local machine. This requires that there are no active mongod instances attached to /srv/mongodb data directory.

copy 
mongorestore --dbpath /srv/mongodb

In the final example, mongorestore restores a database dump located at /opt/backup/mongodump-2011-10-24, to a database running on port 37017 on the host mongodb1.example.net. The mongorestore command authenticates to the MongoDB instance using the username user and the password pass, as follows:

copy 
mongorestore --host mongodb1.example.net --port 37017 --username user --password pass /opt/backup/mongodump-2011-10-24
←   mongodump bsondump  →

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