Ella Shurhavetsky

Solution Architect

Nuno Costa

Team Lead, Technical Services



<div class="introduction">

## Introduction

Systems' security plays a fundamental role in today's modern
applications. It is very important to restrict non-authorized users'
access to root capabilities. With this blog post, we intend to document
how to avoid jeopardizing root system resources, but allow authorized,
non-root users, to perform administrative operations on `mongod`
processes such as starting or stopping the daemon.

The methodology is easily extensible to other administrative operations
such as preventing non-authorized users from modifying `mongod` audit
logs.

Use this procedure for Linux based systems to allow users with
restricted permissions to stop/start/restart `mongod` processes. These
users are set up under a non-root Linux group. Further, the Linux group
of these users is different from the Linux user group under which the
`mongod` process runs.

</div>

<div class="prerequisites">

## Considerations

>
>
>WARNING: The procedure requires root access for the setup. Incorrect
>settings can lead to an unresponsive system, so always test on a
>development environment before implementing in production. Ensure you
>have a current backup of your data.
>
>

It's recommended to perform this procedure while setting up a new
system. If it is not possible, perform the procedure during the
maintenance window.

The settings will impact only one local system, thus in case of replica
set or a sharded cluster perform the procedure in a rolling matter and
never change all nodes at once.

## Tested Linux flavors

-   CentOS 6\|7
-   RHEL 6\|7
-   Ubuntu 18.04
-   Amazon Linux 2

>
>
>Disclaimer: For other Linux distributions the procedure should work in a
>similar way however, only the above versions were tested while writing
>this article.
>
>

</div>

<div class="content">

## Procedure

-   Add the user with limited permissions (replace testuser with your
    user):

``` bash
$ adduser testuser
$ groupadd testgroup
```

-   Install [MongoDB
    Community](https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/administration/install-on-linux/)
    \|
    [Enterprise](https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/administration/install-enterprise/)
    following our recommended procedures.
-   Edit the MongoDB configuration file `/etc/mongod.conf` permissions:

``` none
$ sudo chown mongod:mongod /etc/mongod.conf
$ sudo chmod 600 /etc/mongod.conf
$ ls -l /etc/mongod.conf
-rw-------. 1 mongod mongod 330 Feb 27 18:43 /etc/mongod.conf
```

With this configuration, only the mongod user (and root) will have
permissions to access and edit the `mongod.conf` file. No other user
will be allowed to read/write and have access to its content.

### Systems running with systemd

This procedure works for CentOS 7 and RHEL 7.

-   Add the following configuration lines to the
    [sudoers](https://www.sudo.ws/man/1.8.17/sudoers.man.html) file with
    [visudo](https://www.sudo.ws/man/1.8.13/visudo.man.html):

``` bash
%mongod ALL =(ALL) NOPASSWD: /bin/systemctl start mongod.service, /bin/systemctl stop mongod.service, /bin/systemctl restart mongod.service
%testuser ALL =(ALL) NOPASSWD: /bin/systemctl start mongod.service, /bin/systemctl stop mongod.service, /bin/systemctl restart mongod.service
```

>
>
>Note: The root user account may become non-functional if a syntax error
>is introduced in the sudoers file.
>
>

### Systems running with System V Init

This procedure works for CentOS 6, RHEL 6, Amazon Linux 2 and Ubuntu
18.04.

-   MongoDB init.d-mongod script is available on our repository
    [here](https://github.com/mongodb/mongo/blob/master/rpm/init.d-mongod)
    in case manual download is required (make sure you save it in the
    /etc/init.d/ directory with permissions set to 755).
-   Add the following configuration lines to the
    [sudoers](https://www.sudo.ws/man/1.8.17/sudoers.man.html) file with
    [visudo](https://www.sudo.ws/man/1.8.13/visudo.man.html):

For CentOS 6, RHEL 6 and Amazon Linux 2:

``` bash
%mongod ALL =(ALL) NOPASSWD: /sbin/service mongod start, /sbin/service mongod stop, /sbin/service mongod restart
%testuser ALL =(ALL) NOPASSWD: /sbin/service mongod start, /sbin/service mongod stop, /sbin/service mongod restart
```

For Ubuntu 18.04:

``` bash
%mongod ALL =(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/service mongod start, /usr/sbin/service mongod stop, /usr/sbin/service mongod restart
%testuser ALL =(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/sbin/service mongod start, /usr/sbin/service mongod stop, /usr/sbin/service mongod restart
```

>
>
>Note: The root may become non-functional if a syntax error is introduced
>in the sudoers file.
>
>

## Testing procedure

### Systems running with systemd (systemctl service)

So with these settings testuser has no permissions to read
/etc/mongod.conf but can start and stop the mongod service:

``` none
[testuser@localhost ~]$ sudo /bin/systemctl start mongod.service
[testuser@localhost ~]$ sudo /bin/systemctl stop mongod.service
[testuser@localhost ~]$ vi /etc/mongod.conf
"/etc/mongod.conf" [Permission Denied]
[testuser@localhost ~]$ sudo vi /etc/mongod.conf
"/etc/mongod.conf" [Permission Denied]
```

>
>
>Note: The authorization is given when using the `/bin/systemctl`
>command. With this procedure, the `sudo systemctl start mongod` will
>prompt the sudo password for the testuser.
>
>

### Systems running with System V Init

Use sudo service mongod \[start|stop|restart\]:

``` none
[testuser@localhost ~]$ sudo service mongod start
Starting mongod:                                           [  OK  ]
[testuser@localhost ~]$ sudo service mongod stop
Stopping mongod:                                           [  OK  ]
[testuser@localhost ~]$ vi /etc/mongod.conf
"/etc/mongod.conf" [Permission Denied]
[testuser@localhost ~]$ sudo vi /etc/mongod.conf
[sudo] password for testuser:
Sorry, user testuser is not allowed to execute '/bin/vi /etc/mongod.conf' as root on localhost.
```

>
>
>Note: Additionally, test restarting other services with the testuser
>with (and without) the required permissions.
>
>

</div>

<div class="summary">

## Wrap Up

It is one of the critical security requirements, not to give
unauthorized users full root privileges. With that requirement in mind,
it is important for system administrators to know that it is possible to
give access to actions like restart/stop/start for a `mongod` process
(or any other process) without giving root privileges, using Linux
systems capabilities.

>
>
>If you have questions, please head to our [developer community
>website](https://community.mongodb.com/) where the MongoDB engineers and
>the MongoDB community will help you build your next big idea with
>MongoDB.
>
>

</div>


Secure your MongoDB installation by allowing non-root users to stop/start/restart your mongod process.

Ella Shurhavetsky

Content by Ella Shurhavetsky

Procedure to Allow Non-Root Users to Stop/Start/Restart "mongod" Process