Creating User Accounts

Once you have created a user administrator, you can use that account to create other user accounts that can administer, read, and write to the databases. You add user accounts by using the addUser() method inside the MongoDB shell. The addUser() method accepts a document object that allows you to specify the user name, roles, and passwords that apply to that user. Table 12.2 lists the fields you can specify in the document object.

Table 12.2 Fields used when creating users with the addUser() method

MongoDB provides a number of roles that you can assign to a user account. These roles enable you to implement intricate privileges and restrictions on user accounts. Table 12.3 lists some of the most common roles that can be assigned to users.

Table 12.3 Database roles that can be assigned to user accounts

To create a user, you should switch to that database and then use the addUser() method to create the user object. The following MongoDB shell command illustrates creating a basic administrator user to the test database:

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use test
db.addUser( { user: "testUser",
    pwd: "test",
    roles: [ "readWrite", "dbAdmin" ] } )

Now here’s a more complex example that uses the otherDBRoles to add a user to multiple databases. Keep in mind that you can only use otherDBRoles on the admin database. The following commands add the same user to the admin database with only read rights and give them readWrite privileges to the testDB2 database:

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use admin
db.addUser( { user: "testUser",
    userSource: "test",
    roles: [ "read" ],
    otherDBRoles: { testDB2: [ "readWrite" ] } } )