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Creating a Client

On this page

  • Using Mongo::Client
  • Block Syntax
  • Database Selection
  • Connection Types
  • Standalone Server Connection
  • Replica Set Connection
  • Sharded Cluster Connection
  • Direct Connection
  • Load Balancer Connection
  • MongoDB Atlas Connection
  • Connect to MongoDB Atlas from AWS Lambda
  • SRV URI Notes
  • Client Options
  • Ruby Options
  • URI Options
  • Timeout Options
  • server_selection_timeout
  • socket_timeout
  • connect_timeout
  • max_time_ms
  • wtimeout
  • TLS Connections
  • TLS vs SSL Option Names
  • Enable TLS Connections
  • Specify Client TLS Certificate
  • Modifying SSLContext
  • Specify CA Certificate
  • OCSP Verification
  • IPv4/IPv6 Connections
  • TCP Keepalive Configuration
  • Connection Pooling
  • Usage with Forking Servers
  • Manually Handling Process Forks
  • Troubleshooting
  • Retryable Reads
  • Modern Retryable Reads
  • Legacy Retryable Reads
  • Disabling Retryable Reads
  • Retryable Writes
  • Modern Retryable Writes
  • Legacy Retryable Writes
  • Disabling Retryable Writes
  • Logging
  • Changing the Logger Level
  • Truncation
  • Compression
  • Server API Parameters
  • Development Configuration
  • Production Configuration
  • Feature Flags

To connect to a MongoDB deployment, create a Mongo::Client object. Provide a list of hosts and options or a connection string URI to the``Mongo::Client`` constructor. The client's selected database defaults to admin.

By default, the driver will automatically detect the topology used by the deployment and connect appropriately.

To connect to a local standalone MongoDB deployment, specify the host and port of the server. In most cases you would also specify the database name to connect to; if no database name is specified, the client will use the admin database:

Mongo::Client.new([ '127.0.0.1:27017' ], database: 'mydb')
# Or using the URI syntax:
Mongo::Client.new("mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/mydb")

Note

The hostname localhost is treated specially by the driver and will be resolved to IPv4 addresses only.

To connect to MongoDB Atlas, specify the Atlas deployment URI:

Mongo::Client.new("mongodb+srv://username:myRealPassword@cluster0.mongodb.net/mydb?w=majority")

The driver will discover all nodes in the cluster and connect to them as needed.

Another way to create a Mongo::Client object is to use the block syntax:

Mongo::Client.new(...) do |client|
# work with the client
end

Note that when creating a client using this syntax, the client is automatically closed after the block finishes executing.

By default, the client will connect to the admin database.

The admin database is a special database in MongoDB often used for administrative tasks and storing administrative data such as users and roles (although users and roles may also be defined in other databases). In a sharded cluster, the admin database exists on the config servers rather than the shard servers. Although it is possible to use the admin database for ordinary operations (such as storing application data), this is not recommended and the application should explicitly specify the database it wishes to use.

The database can be specified during Client construction:

# Using Ruby client options:
client = Mongo::Client.new(['localhost'], database: 'mydb')
# Using a MongoDB URI:
client = Mongo::Client.new('mongodb://localhost/mydb')

Given a Client instance, the use method can be invoked to obtain a new Client instance configured with the specified database:

client = Mongo::Client.new(['localhost'], database: 'mydb')
admin_client = client.use('admin')
# Issue an administrative command
admin_client.database.command(replSetGetConfig: 1).documents.first

There are other special databases in MongoDB which should be only used for their stated purposes:

  • The config database.

  • The local database.

  • The $external database, which is used with PLAIN, Kerberos and X.509 authentication mechanisms.

The driver will, by default, discover the type of deployment it is instructed to connect to (except for load-balanced deployments) and behave in the manner that matches the deployment type. The subsections below describe how the driver behaves in each of the deployment types as well as how to force particular behavior, bypassing automatic deployment type detection.

Note that the detection of deployment type happens when the driver receives the first reply from any of the servers it is instructed to connect to (unless the load-balancing mode is requested, see below). The driver will remain in the discovered or configured topology even if the underlying deployment is replaced by one of a different type. In particular, when replacing a replica set with a sharded cluster at the same address the client instance must be recreated (such as by restarting the application) for it to communicate with the sharded cluster.

Automatic discovery of load-balanced deployments is currently not supported. Load-balanced deployments will be treated as deployments of their underlying type, which would generally be sharded clusters. The driver will fail to correctly operate when treating a load-balanced deployment as a sharded cluster, therefore when the deployment is a load-balanced one the client must be explicitly configured to connect to a load balancer.

If the deployment is a single server, also known as a standalone deployment, all operations will be directed to the specified server.

If the server is shut down and replaced by a replica set node, the driver will continue sending all operations to that node, even if the node is or becomes a secondary.

To force a standalone connection, see the direct connection section below.

When connecting to a replica set, it is sufficient to pass the address of any node in the replica set to the driver. The node does not have to be the primary and it may be a hidden node. The driver will then automatically discover the remaining nodes.

However, it is recommended to specify all nodes that are part of the replica set, so that in the event of one or more nodes being unavailable (for example, due to maintenance or reconfiguration) the driver can still connect to the replica set.

Replica set connection examples:

Mongo::Client.new([ '127.0.0.1:27017' ], database: 'mydb')
Mongo::Client.new([ '127.0.0.1:27017', '127.0.0.1:27018' ], database: 'mydb')
# Or using the URI syntax:
Mongo::Client.new("mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017,127.0.0.1:27018/mydb")

To make the driver verify the replica set name upon connection, pass it using the replica_set Ruby option or the replicaSet URI option:

Mongo::Client.new([ '127.0.0.1:27017', '127.0.0.1:27018' ],
database: 'mydb', replica_set: 'myapp')
# Or using the URI syntax:
Mongo::Client.new("mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017,127.0.0.1:27018/mydb?replicaSet=myapp")

If the deployment is not a replica set or uses a different replica set name, all operations will fail (until the expected replica set is returned by the servers).

It is also possible to force a replica set connection without specifying the replica set name. Doing so is generally unnecessary and is deprecated:

Mongo::Client.new([ '127.0.0.1:27017', '127.0.0.1:27018' ],
database: 'mydb', connect: :replica_set)
# Or using the URI syntax:
Mongo::Client.new("mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017,127.0.0.1:27018/mydb?connect=replica_set")

To connect to a MongoDB Atlas cluster which is deployed as a replica set, connect to the URI:

Mongo::Client.new("mongodb+srv://username:myRealPassword@cluster0.mongodb.net/test?w=majority")

Please review the SRV URI notes if using SRV URIs.

To connect to a sharded cluster deployment, specify the addresses of the mongos routers:

Mongo::Client.new([ '1.2.3.4:27017', '1.2.3.5:27017' ], database: 'mydb')
Mongo::Client.new("mongodb://1.2.3.4:27017,1.2.3.5:27017/mydb")

Note that unlike a replica set connection, you may choose to connect to a subset of the mongos routers that exist in the deployment. The driver will monitor each router and will use the ones that are available (i.e., the driver will generally handle individual routers becoming unavailable due to failures or maintenance). When specifying the list of routers explicitly, the driver will not discover remaining routers that may be configured and will not attempt to connect to them.

The driver will automatically balance the operation load among the routers it is aware of.

To connect to a MongoDB Atlas cluster which is deployed as a sharded cluster, connect to the URI:

Mongo::Client.new("mongodb+srv://username:myRealPassword@cluster0.mongodb.net/test?w=majority")

When the driver connects to a sharded cluster via an SRV URI, it will periodically poll the SRV records of the address specified in the URI for changes and will automatically add and remove the mongos hosts to/from its list of servers as they are added and removed to/from the sharded cluster.

To force a sharded cluster connection, use the connect: :sharded option. Doing so is generally unnecessary and is deprecated:

Mongo::Client.new([ '127.0.0.1:27017', '127.0.0.1:27018' ],
database: 'mydb', connect: :sharded)
# Or using the URI syntax:
Mongo::Client.new("mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017,127.0.0.1:27018/mydb?connect=sharded")

Please review the SRV URI notes if using SRV URIs.

To disable the deployment type discovery and force all operations to be performed on a particular server, specify the direct_connection option:

Mongo::Client.new([ '1.2.3.4:27017' ], database: 'mydb', direct_connection: true)
# Or using the URI syntax:
Mongo::Client.new("mongodb://1.2.3.4:27017/mydb?directConnection=true")

Alternatively, the deprecated connect: :direct option is equivalent:

Mongo::Client.new([ '1.2.3.4:27017' ], database: 'mydb', connect: :direct)
# Or using the URI syntax:
Mongo::Client.new("mongodb://1.2.3.4:27017/mydb?connect=direct")

The direct connection mode is most useful for performing operations on a particular replica set node, although it also permits the underlying server to change type (e.g. from a replica set node to a mongos router, or vice versa).

Unlike other deployment types, the driver does not currently automatically detect a load-balanced deployment.

To connect to a load balancer, specify the load_balanced: true Ruby option or the loadBalanced=true URI option:

Mongo::Client.new([ '1.2.3.4:27017' ], database: 'mydb', load_balanced: true)
# Or using the URI syntax:
Mongo::Client.new("mongodb://1.2.3.4:27017/mydb?loadBalanced=true")

When using these options, if the specified server is not a load balancer, the client will fail all operations (until the server becomes a load balancer).

To treat the server as a load balancer even if it doesn't identify as such, use the connect: :load_balanced Ruby option or the connect=load_balanced URI option:

Mongo::Client.new([ '1.2.3.4:27017' ],
database: 'mydb', load_balanced: true, connect: :load_balanced)
# Or using the URI syntax:
Mongo::Client.new("mongodb://1.2.3.4:27017/mydb?loadBalanced=true&connect=load_balanced")

To connect to a MongoDB deployment on Atlas, first create a Mongo::Client instance using your cluster's connection string and other client options.

You can set the Stable API version as a client option to avoid breaking changes when you upgrade to a new server version.

The following code shows how you can specify the connection string and the Stable API client option when connecting to a MongoDB deployment and verify that the connection is successful:

require 'mongo'
# Replace the placeholders with your credentials
uri = "mongodb+srv://<username>:<password>@cluster0.sample.mongodb.net/?retryWrites=true&w=majority"
# Set the server_api field of the options object to Stable API version 1
options = { server_api: { version: "1" } }
# Create a new client and connect to the server
client = Mongo::Client.new(uri, options)
# Send a ping to confirm a successful connection
begin
admin_client = client.use('admin')
result = admin_client.database.command(ping: 1).documents.first
puts "Pinged your deployment. You successfully connected to MongoDB!"
rescue Mongo::Error::OperationFailure => ex
puts ex
ensure
client.close
end

To learn how to connect to Atlas from AWS Lambda, see the Manage Connections with AWS Lambda documentation.

When the driver connects to a mongodb+srv protocol URI, keep in mind the following:

  1. SRV URI lookup is performed synchronously when the client is constructed. If this lookup fails for any reason, client construction will fail with an exception. When a client is constructed with a list of hosts, the driver will attempt to contact and monitor those hosts for as long as the client object exists. If one of these hosts does not resolve initially but becomes resolvable later, the driver will be able to establish a connection to such a host when it becomes available. The initial SRV URI lookup must succeed on the first attempt; subsequent host lookups will be retried by the driver as needed.

  2. The driver looks up URI options in the DNS TXT records corresponding to the SRV records. These options can be overridden by URI options specified in the URI and by Ruby options, in this order.

  3. Because the URI options are retrieved in a separate DNS query from the SRV lookup, in environments with unreliable network connectivity the URI option query may fail when the SRV lookup succeeds. Such a failure would cause the driver to use the wrong auth source leading to authentication failures. This can be worked around by explicitly specifying the auth source:

    Mongo::Client.new("mongodb+srv://username:myRealPassword@cluster0.mongodb.net/test?w=majority&authSource=admin")
  4. If the topology of the constructed Client object is unknown or a sharded cluster, the driver will begin monitoring the specified SRV DNS records for changes and will automatically update the list of servers in the cluster. The updates will stop if the topology becomes a single or a replica set.

Mongo::Client's constructor accepts a number of options configuring the behavior of the driver. The options can be provided in the options hash as Ruby options, in the URI as URI options, or both. If both a Ruby option and the analogous URI option are provided, the Ruby option takes precedence.

Note

The options passed directly should be symbols.

Note

Unless otherwise specified, Ruby options that deal with times are given in seconds.

Option
Description
Type
Default
:app_name
Application name that is printed to the mongod logs upon establishing a connection in server versions >= 3.4.
String
none
:auth_mech
Specifies the authenticaion mechanism to use. Can be one of: :gssapi, :mongodb_cr, :mongodb_x509, :plain, :scram, :scram256. GSSAPI (Kerberos) authentication requires additional dependencies.
Symbol
If user credentials are not supplied, nil. If user credentials are supplied, the default depends on server version. MongoDB 4.0 and later: :scram256 if user credentials correspond to a user which supports SCRAM-SHA-256 authentication, otherwise :scram. MongoDB 3.0-3.6: :scram. MongoDB 2.6: :mongodb_cr
:auth_mech_properties

Provides additional authentication mechanism properties.

The keys in properties are interpreted case-insensitively. When the client is created, keys are lowercased.

Hash
When using the GSSAPI authentication mechanism, the default properties are {service_name: "mongodb"}. Otherwise the default is nil.
:auth_source
Specifies the authentication source.
String
For MongoDB 2.6 and later: admin if credentials are supplied, otherwise the current database
:auto_encryption_options

A Hash of options for configuring automatic encryption.

  • :key_vault_client - A client connected to the MongoDB instance storing the encryption data keys (Mongo::Client, defaults to the top-level client instance).

  • :key_vault_namespace - The namespace of the key vault collection in the format "database.collection" (String, required).

  • :kms_providers - Key management service configuration information. One or both of the keys :local and :aws must be specified (Hash, required). See the "The kms_providers option`` section of the Client-Side Encryption tutorial for more information about this option.

  • :schema_map - The JSONSchema for one or more collections specifying which fields should be encrypted (Hash, optional, defaults to nil).

  • :bypass_auto_encryption - Whether to skip automatic encryption when performing database operations (Boolean, defaults to false).

  • :extra_options - Options related to spawning mongocryptd (Hash, optional, defaults to nil).

For more information about formatting these options, see the "Auto-Encryption Options" section of the Client-Side Encryption tutorial.

Hash
none
:bg_error_backtrace
Experimental. Controls whether and how backtraces are logged when errors occur in background threads. If true, the driver will log complete backtraces. If set to a positive integer, the driver will log up to that many backtrace lines. If set to false or nil, no backtraces will be logged. Other values are an error.
true, false, nil, Integer
none
:compressors
A list of potential compressors to use, in order of preference. Please see below for details on how the driver implements compression.
Array<String>
none
:connect
Deprecated. Disables deployment topology discovery normally performed by the dirver and forces the cluster topology to a specific type. Valid values are :direct, :load_balanced, :replica_set or :sharded. If :load_balanced is used, the client will behave as if it is connected to a load balancer regardless of whether the server(s) it connects to advertise themselves as load balancers.
Symbol
none
:connect_timeout
The number of seconds to wait to establish a socket connection before raising an exception. This timeout is also used for SRV DNS record resolution. nil and 0 mean no timeout. Client creation will fail with an error if an invalid timeout value is passed (such as a negative value or a non-numeric value).
Float
10
:database
The name of the database to connect to.
String
admin
:direct_connection
Connect directly to the specified host, do not discover deployment topology.
Boolean
false
:heartbeat_frequency
The number of seconds for the server monitors to refresh server states asynchronously.
Float
10
:id_generator
A custom object to generate ids for documents. Must respond to #generate.
Object
none
:load_balanced
Whether to expect to connect to a load balancer.
Boolean
false
:local_threshold
Specifies the maximum latency in seconds between the nearest server and the servers that can be available for selection to operate on.
Float
0.015
:logger
A custom logger.
Object
Logger
:max_connecting
The maximum number of connections that the connection pool will try to establish in parallel.
Integer
2
:max_idle_time

The maximum time, in seconds, that a connection can be idle before it is closed by the connection pool.

Warning: when connected to a load balancer, the driver uses existing connections for iterating cursors (which includes change streams) and executing transactions. Setting an idle time via this option may cause the driver to close connections that are needed for subsequent operations, causing those operations to fail.

Integer
none
:max_pool_size
The maximum size of the connection pool for each server. Setting this option to zero removes the max size limit from the connection pool, permitting it to grow to any number of connections.
Integer
20
:max_read_retries
The maximum number of read retries, when legacy read retries are used. Set to 0 to disable legacy read retries.
Integer
1
:max_write_retries
The maximum number of write retries, when legacy write retries are used. Set to 0 to disable legacy write retries.
Integer
1
:min_pool_size
The minimum number of connections in the connection pool for each server. The driver will establish connections in the background until the pool contains this many connections.
Integer
0
:monitoring
The monitoring object.
Object
none
:password
The password of the user to authenticate with.
String
none
:platform
Platform information to include in the metadata printed to the mongod logs upon establishing a connection in server versions >= 3.4.
String
none
:read

Specifies the read preference mode and tag sets for selecting servers as a Hash. Allowed Keys in the hash are :mode, :tag_sets and :max_staleness.

{ read:
{ mode: :secondary,
tag_sets: [ "data_center" => "berlin" ],
max_staleness: 5,
}
}

If tag sets are provided, they must be an array of hashes. A server satisfies the read preference if its tags match any one hash in the provided tag sets.

Each tag set must be a hash, and will be converted internally to a BSON::Document instance prior to being used for server selection. Hash keys can be strings or symbols. The keys are case sensitive. Hash values must be strings, and are matched exactly against the values in the replica set configuration.

Hash
{ :mode => :primary }
:read_concern
Specifies the read concern options. The only valid key is level, for which the valid values are :local, :available, :majority, :snapshot, and :linearizable.
Hash
none
:read_retry_interval
The interval, in seconds, in which reads on a mongos are retried.
Integer
5
:replica_set
When connecting to a replica set, this is the name of the set to filter servers by.
String
none
:retry_writes
If a single-statement write operation fails from a network error, the driver automatically retries it once when connected to server versions 3.6+.
Boolean
true
:sdam_proc

Since the client begins monitoring the deployment in background as soon as it is constructed, constructing a client and then subscribing to SDAM events in a separate statement may result in the subscriber not receiving some of the SDAM events. The :sdam_proc option permits adding event subscribers on the client being constructed before any SDAM events are published.

Pass a Proc which will be called with the Client as the argument after the client's event subscription mechanism has been initialized but before any of the servers are added to the client. Use this Proc to set up SDAM event subscribers on the client.

Note: the client is not fully constructed when the Proc provided in :sdam_proc is invoked, in particular the cluster is nil at this time. ``:sdam_proc procedure should limit itself to calling Client#subscribe and Client#unsubscribe methods on on the passed client only.

Proc
none
:server_api

The server API version requested. This is a hash with the following allowed items: - :version (String) - :strict (true or false) - :deprecation_errors (true or false)

Note that the server API version can only be specified as a Ruby option, not as a URI option, and it cannot be overridden for database and collection objects.

If server API version is changed on a client (such as via the with call), the entire API version hash is replaced with the new specification (the old and the new individual fields are NOT merged).

Hash
none
:server_selection_timeout
The number of seconds to wait for an appropriate server to be selected for an operation to be executed before raising an exception.
Float
30
:socket_timeout
The number of seconds to wait for an operation to execute on a socket before raising an exception. nil and 0 mean no timeout. Client creation will fail with an error if an invalid timeout value is passed (such as a negative value or a non-numeric value).
Float
none
:srv_max_hosts
The maximum number of mongoses that the driver will communicate with for sharded topologies. If this option is set to 0, there will be no maximum number of mongoses. If the given URI resolves to more hosts than :srv_max_hosts, the client will ramdomly choose an :srv_max_hosts sized subset of hosts. Note that the hosts that the driver ignores during client construction will never be used. If the hosts chosen by the driver become unavailable, the client will quit working completely, even though the deployment has other functional mongoses.
Integer
0
:srv_service_name
The service name to use in the SRV DNS query.
String
mongodb
:ssl
Tell the client to connect to the servers via TLS.
Boolean
false
:ssl_ca_cert
The file path containing concatenated certificate authority certificates used to validate certs passed from the other end of the connection. One of :ssl_ca_cert, :ssl_ca_cert_string or :ssl_ca_cert_object (in order of priority) is required for :ssl_verify.
String
none
:ssl_ca_cert_object
An array of OpenSSL::X509::Certificate representing the certificate authority certificates used to validate certs passed from the other end of the connection. One of :ssl_ca_cert, :ssl_ca_cert_string or :ssl_ca_cert_object (in order of priority) is required for :ssl_verify.
Array< OpenSSL::X509::Certificate >
none
:ssl_ca_cert_string
A string containing concatenated certificate authority certificates used to validate certs passed from the other end of the connection. One of :ssl_ca_cert, :ssl_ca_cert_string or :ssl_ca_cert_object (in order of priority) is required for :ssl_verify.
String
none
:ssl_cert

Path to the client certificate file used to identify the application to the MongoDB servers. The file may also contain the certificate's private key; if so, the private key is ignored by this option. The file may also contain intermediate certificates forming the certificate chain from the client certificate to the CA certificate; any intermediate certificates will be parsed by the driver and provided to the OpenSSL context in extra_chain_cert attribute. If intermediate certificates are provided, they must follow the client certificate which must be the first certificate in the file.

This option, if present, takes precedence over :ssl_cert_string and :ssl_cert_object options.

String
none
:ssl_cert_object
The OpenSSL::X509::Certificate used to identify the application to the MongoDB servers. Only one certificate may be passed through this option.
OpenSSL::X509::Certificate
none
:ssl_cert_string

A string containing the PEM-encoded certificate used to identify the application to the MongoDB servers. The string may also contain the certificate's private key; if so, the private key is ignored by this option. The string may also contain intermediate certificates forming the certificate chain from the client certificate to the CA certificate; any intermediate certificates will be parsed by the driver and provided to the OpenSSL context in extra_chain_cert attribute. If intermediate certificates are provided, they must follow the client certificate which must be the first certificatet in the string.

This option, if present, takes precedence over the :ssl_cert_object option.

String
none
:ssl_key
The private keyfile used to identify the connection against MongoDB. Note that even if the key is stored in the same file as the certificate, both need to be explicitly specified. This option, if present, takes precedence over the values of :ssl_key_string and :ssl_key_object.
String
none
:ssl_key_object
The private key used to identify the connection against MongoDB.
OpenSSL::PKey
none
:ssl_key_pass_phrase
A passphrase for the private key.
String
none
:ssl_key_string
A string containing the PEM-encoded private key used to identify the connection against MongoDB. This parameter, if present, takes precedence over the value of option :ssl_key_object.
String
none
:ssl_verify
Whether to perform peer certificate, hostname and OCSP endpoint validation. Note that the decision of whether to validate certificates will be overridden if :ssl_verify_certificate is set, the decision of whether to validate hostnames will be overridden if :ssl_verify_hostname is set and the decision of whether to validate OCSP endpoint will be overridden if :ssl_verify_ocsp_endpoint is set.
Boolean
true
:ssl_verify_certificate
Whether to perform peer certificate validation. This setting overrides the :ssl_verify setting with respect to whether certificate validation is performed.
Boolean
true
:ssl_verify_hostname
Whether to perform peer hostname validation. This setting overrides the :ssl_verify setting with respect to whether hostname validation is performed.
Boolean
true
:ssl_verify_ocsp_endpoint
Whether to validate server-supplied certificate against the OCSP endpoint specified in the certificate, if the OCSP endpoint is specified in the certificate. This setting overrides :ssl_verify with respect to whether OCSP endpoint validation is performed.
Boolean
true
:truncate_logs
Whether to truncate the logs at the default 250 characters.
Boolean
true
:user
The name of the user to authenticate with.
String
none
:wait_queue_timeout
The number of seconds to wait for a connection in the connection pool to become available.
Float
10
:wrapping_libraries
Information about libraries such as ODMs that are wrapping the driver. Specify the lower level libraries first. Allowed hash keys: :name, :version, :platform. Example: [name: 'Mongoid', version: '7.1.2']
Array<Hash>
none
:write
Deprecated. Equivalent to :write_concern option. If both :write and :write_concern are specified, their values must be identical.
Hash
{ w: 1 }
:write_concern

Specifies write concern options as a Hash. Keys in the hash can be :w, :wtimeout, :j, :fsync. Note that :wtimeout is specified in milliseconds, not seconds.

{ write_concern: { w: 2 } }
Hash
{ w: 1 }
:zlib_compression_level
The Zlib compression level to use, if using compression. See Ruby's Zlib module for valid levels.
Integer
none

Note

The Ruby driver does not implement certificate revocation list (CRL) checking.

Since the URI options are required to be in camel case, which is not the Ruby standard, the following table shows URI options and their corresponding Ruby options.

URI options are explained in detail in the Connection URI reference.

Note

Options that are set in milliseconds in the URI are represented as a float in Ruby and the units are seconds.

URI Option
Ruby Option
appName=String
:app_name => String
authMechanism=String

:auth_mech => Symbol

Auth mechanism values are converted as follows from URI options to Ruby options:

  • GSSAPI => :gssapi

  • MONGODB-CR => :mongodb_cr

  • MONGODB-X509 => :mongodb_x509

  • PLAIN => :plain

  • SCRAM-SHA-1 => :scram

  • SCRAM-SHA-256 => :scram256

If a different value is provided for auth mechanism, it is converted to the Ruby option unmodified and retains its String type. Note that, while currently the driver allows a Client instance to be constructed with an unrecognized auth mechanism, this behavior may change in a future version of the driver.

authMechanismProperties=Strings

{ :auth_mech_properties => { :service_realm => String, :canonicalize_host_name => true|false, :service_name => String } }

Specified as comma-separated key:value pairs, e.g. "SERVICE_REALM:foo,CANONICALIZE_HOST_NAME:TRUE".

authSource=String
:auth_source => String
compressors=Strings

:compressors => Array<String>

A comma-separated list of potential compressors to use, in order of preference. Please see below for details on how the driver implements compression.

connect=String

:connect => Symbol

The same values that the :connect Ruby option accepts are accepted here. For multi-word values, the values must be provided using underscores to separate the words, i.e. connect=replica_set and connect=load_balanced.

connectTimeoutMS=Integer

:connect_timeout => Float

Unlike the corresponding Ruby option which fails client creation on invalid values (e.g. negative and non-numeric values), invalid values provided via this URI option are ignored with a warning.

directConnection=Boolean
:direct_connection => Boolean
fsync=Boolean
{ :write_concern => { :fsync => true|false }}
heartbeatFrequencyMS=Integer
:heartbeat_frequency => Float
journal=Boolean
{ :write_concern => { :j => true|false }}
loadBalanced=Boolean
:load_balanced => Boolean
localThresholdMS=Integer
:local_threshold => Float
maxConnecting=Integer
:max_connecting => Integer
maxIdleTimeMS=Integer
:max_idle_time => Float
maxStalenessSeconds=Integer

{ :read => { :max_staleness => Integer }}

If the maxStalenessSeconds URI option value is -1, the driver treats this as if the option was not given at all. Otherwise, if the option value is numeric, the Ruby option is set to the specified value converted to an Integer. Note that numeric values greater than 0 but less than 90, or less than -1, are accepted by the Client constructor but will cause server selection to fail (unless the option is changed via, for example, the with method prior to any operations being performed on the driver). If the option value is non-numeric, it is ignored and the driver treats this case as if the option was not given at all.

maxPoolSize=Integer
:max_pool_size => Integer
minPoolSize=Integer
:min_pool_size => Integer
readConcernLevel=String
:read_concern => Hash
readPreference=String
{ :read => { :mode => Symbol }}
readPreferenceTags=Strings

{ :read => { :tag_sets => Array<Hash> }}

Each instance of the readPreferenceTags field is a comma-separated key:value pair which will appear in the :tag_sets array in the order they are specified. For instance, "readPreferenceTags=dc:ny,rack:1&readPreferenceTags=dc:ny" will be converted to [ { 'dc' => 'ny', 'rack' => '1' }, { 'dc' => 'ny' }].

replicaSet=String
:replica_set => String
retryWrites=Boolean
:retry_writes => boolean
serverSelectionTimeoutMS=Integer
:server_selection_timeout => Float
socketTimeoutMS=Integer

:socket_timeout => Float

Unlike the corresponding Ruby option which fails client creation on invalid values (e.g. negative and non-numeric values), invalid values provided via this URI option are ignored with a warning.

srvMaxHosts=Integer
:srv_max_hosts => Integer
srvServiceName=String
:srv_service_name => String
ssl=Boolean
:ssl => true|false
tls=Boolean
:ssl => boolean
tlsAllowInvalidCertificates=Boolean

:ssl_verify_certificate => boolean

Because tlsAllowInvalidCertificates uses true to signify that verification should be disabled and ssl_verify_certificate uses false to signify that verification should be disabled, the boolean is inverted before being used to set ssl_verify_certificate.

tlsAllowInvalidHostnames=Boolean

:ssl_verify_hostname => boolean

Because tlsAllowInvalidHostnames uses true to signify that verification should be disabled and ssl_verify_hostname uses false to signify that verification should be disabled, the boolean is inverted before being used to set ssl_verify_hostname.

tlsCAFile=String
:ssl_ca_cert => String
tlsCertificateKeyFile=String
:ssl_cert => String
tlsCertificateKeyFile=String
:ssl_key => String
tlsCertificateKeyFilePassword=String
:ssl_key_pass_phrase => String
tlsDisableOCSPEndpointCheck=Boolean

:ssl_verify_ocsp_endpoint => boolean

Because tlsDisableOCSPEndpointCheck uses true to signify that verification should be disabled and ssl_verify_ocsp_endpoint uses false to signify that verification should be disabled, the boolean is inverted before being used to set ssl_verify_ocsp_endpoint.

tlsInsecure=Boolean

:ssl_verify => boolean

Because tlsInsecure uses true to signify that verification should be disabled and ssl_verify uses false to signify that verification should be disabled, the boolean is inverted before being used to set ssl_verify.

w=Integer|String
{ :write_concern => { :w => Integer|String }}
waitQueueTimeoutMS=Integer
:wait_queue_timeout => Float
wtimeoutMS=Integer
{ :write_concern => { :wtimeout => Integer }}
zlibCompressionLevel=Integer
:zlib_compression_level => Integer

Note

The Ruby driver only fails connections when it receives a definitive signed response indicating that the server's certificate has been revoked. Because of this, the driver does not recognize the tlsDisableCertificateRevocationCheck URI option. If this option is provided in a URI, it will be ignored.

When executing an operation, the number of seconds to wait for the driver to find an appropriate server to send an operation to. Defaults to 30.

A value of 0 means no timeout.

When an invalid value (e.g. a negative value or a non-numeric value) is passed via the URI option, the invalid input is ignored with a warning. When an invalid value is passed directly to Client via a Ruby option, Client construction fails with an error.

In replica set deployments, this timeout should be set to exceed the typical replica set election times in order for the driver to transparently handle primary changes. This timeout also allows the application and the database to be started simultaneously; the application will wait up to this much time for the database to become available.

If the application server is behind a reverse proxy, server selection timeout should be lower than the request timeout configured on the reverse proxy (for example, this applies to deployments on Heroku which has a fixed 30 second timeout in the routing layer). In development this value can be lowered to provide quicker failure when the server is not running.

The number of seconds to wait for a socket read or write to complete on regular (non-monitoring) connections. Default is no timeout.

A value of 0 means no timeout.

When an invalid value (e.g. a negative value or a non-numeric value) is passed via the URI option, the invalid input is ignored with a warning. When an invalid value is passed directly to Client via a Ruby option, Client construction fails with an error.

This timeout should take into account both network latency and operation duration. For example, setting this timeout to 5 seconds will abort queries taking more than 5 seconds to execute on the server with Mongo::Error::SocketTimeoutError.

Note that even though by default there is no socket timeout set, the operating system may still time out read operations depending on its configuration. The keepalive settings are intended to detect broken network connections (as opposed to aborting operations simply because they take a long time to execute).

Note that if an operation is timed out by the driver due to exceeding the socket_timeout value, it is not aborted on the server. For this reason it is recommended to use max_time_ms option for potentially long running operations, as this will abort their execution on the server.

This option does not apply to monitoring connections.

The number of seconds to wait for a socket connection to be established to a server. Defaults to 10.

This timeout is also used as both connect timeout and socket timeout for monitoring connections.

When using a mongodb+srv:// URI, this timeout is also used for SRV and TXT DNS lookups. Note that the timeout applies per lookup; due to DNS suffix search lists, multiple lookups may be performed as part of a single name resolution.

The number of seconds to wait for a connection in the connection pool to become available. Defaults to 10.

As of driver version 2.11, this timeout should be set to a value at least as large as connect_timeout because connection pool now fully establishes connections prior to returning them, which may require several network round trips.

Specified as an option on a particular operation, the number of milliseconds to allow the operation to execute for on the server. Not set by default.

Consider using this option instead of a socket_timeout for potentially long running operations to be interrupted on the server when they take too long.

The number of milliseconds to wait for a write to be acknowledged by the number of servers specified in the write concern. Not set by default, which instructs the server to apply its default. This option can be set globally on the client or passed to individual operations under :write_concern.

To connect to the MongoDB deployment using TLS:

  • Enable TLS connections in Mongo::Client.

  • Specify the client TLS certificate.

  • Specify the CA certificate to verify the server's TLS certificate.

Note

When using JRuby, ECDSA certificates are not currently supported.

All MongoDB server versions supported by the Ruby driver (2.6 and higher) only implement TLS. 2.6 and higher servers do not use SSL.

For historical reasons, the Ruby option names pertaining to TLS configuration use the ssl rather than the tls prefix. The next major version of the Ruby driver (3.0) will use the tls prefix for Ruby option names.

The URI option names use the tls prefix, with one exception: there is a ssl URI option that is deprecated and equivalent to the tls URI option.

TLS must be explicitly requested on the client side when the deployment requires TLS connections - there is currently no automatic detection of whether the deployment requires TLS.

To request TLS connections, specify the following client options when constructing a Mongo::Client:

  • The :ssl Ruby option.

  • The tls URI option.

  • The ssl URI option (deprecated).

By default, MongoDB server will attempt to verify the connecting clients' TLS certificates, which requires the clients to specify their TLS certificates when connecting. This can be accomplished via:

  • The :ssl_cert/:ssl_cert_object/:ssl_cert_string and :ssl_key/:ssl_key_object/:ssl_key_string/:ssl_key_pass_phrase Ruby options.

  • The tlsCertificateKeyFile URI option.

When using the Ruby options, the client TLS certificate and the corresponding private key may be provided separately. For example, if the certificate is stored in client.crt and the private key is stored in client.key, a Mongo::Client may be constructed as follows:

client = Mongo::Client.new(["localhost:27017"],
ssl: true,
ssl_cert: 'path/to/client.crt',
ssl_key: 'path/to/client.key',
ssl_ca_cert: 'path/to/ca.crt',
)

ssl_cert, ssl_cert_string, ssl_key and ssl_key_string Ruby options also permit the certificate and the key to be provided in the same file or string, respectively. The files containing both certificate and private key frequently have the .pem extension. When both certificate and the private key are provided in the same file or string, both the certifcate and the key options must be utilized, as follows:

client = Mongo::Client.new(["localhost:27017"],
ssl: true,
ssl_cert: 'path/to/client.pem',
ssl_key: 'path/to/client.pem',
ssl_ca_cert: 'path/to/ca.crt',
)

When using the URI option, the certificate and the key must be stored in a file and both must be stored in the same file. Example usage:

client = Mongo::Client.new(
"mongodb://localhost:27017/?tls=true&tlsCertificateKeyFile=path%2fto%2fclient.pem&tlsCertificateKeyFile=path%2fto%2fca.crt")

Note

URI option values must be properly URI escaped. This applies, for example, to slashes in the paths.

It may be desirable to further configure TLS options in the driver, for example by enabling or disabling certain ciphers. Currently, the Ruby driver does not provide a way to do this when initializing a Mongo::Client.

However, the Ruby driver provides a way to set global "TLS context hooks" -- these are user-provided Proc``s that will be invoked before any TLS socket connection and can be used to modify the underlying ``OpenSSL::SSL::SSLContext object used by the socket.

To set the TLS context hooks, add Proc``s to the ``Mongo.tls_context_hooks array. This should be done before creating any Mongo::Client instances. For example, in a Rails application this code could be placed in an initializer.

Mongo.tls_context_hooks.push(
Proc.new { |context|
context.ciphers = ["AES256-SHA"]
}
)
# Only the AES256-SHA cipher will be enabled from this point forward

Every Proc in Mongo.tls_context_hooks will be passed an OpenSSL::SSL::SSLContext object as its sole argument. These Proc``s will be executed sequentially during the creation of every ``Mongo::Socket::SSL object.

It is possible to assign the entire array of hooks calling Mongo.tls_context_hooks=, but doing so will remove any previously assigned hooks. It is recommended to use the Array#push or Array#unshift methods to add new hooks.

It is also possible to remove hooks from Mongo.tls_context_hooks by storing a reference to the Procs somewhere else in the application, and then using Array#delete_if to remove the desired hooks.

Warning

TLS context hooks are global and will affect every instance of Mongo::Client. Any library that allows applications to enable these hooks should expose methods to modify the hooks (which can be called by the application) rather than automatically enabling the hooks when the library is loaded.

Further information on configuring MongoDB server for TLS is available in the MongoDB manual.

It is possible to use certificate chains for both the client and the server certificates. When using chains, the certificate authority parameter should be configured to contain the trusted root certificates only; the intermediate certificates, if any, should be provided in the server or client certificates by concatenating them after the leaf server and client certificates, respectively.

:ssl_cert and :ssl_cert_string Ruby options, as well as tlsCertificateKeyFile URI option, support certificate chains. :ssl_cert_object Ruby option, which takes an instance of OpenSSL::X509::Certificate, does not support certificate chains.

The Ruby driver performs strict X.509 certificate verification, which requires that both of the following fields are set in the intermediate certificate(s):

  • X509v3 Basic Constraints: CA: TRUE -- Can sign certificates

  • X509v3 Key Usage: Key Cert Sign -- Can sign certificates

More information about these flags can be found in this Stack Overflow question.

It is a common pitfall to concatenate intermediate certificates to the root CA certificates passed in tlsCAFile / ssl_ca_cert options. By doing so, the intermediate certificates are elevated to trusted status and are themselves not verified against the actual CA root. More information on this issue is available in this mailing list post.

The driver will attempt to verify the server's TLS certificate by default, and will abort the connection if this verification fails. By default, the driver will use the default system root certificate store as the trust anchor. To specify the CA certificate that the server's certificate is signed with, use:

  • The :ssl_ca_cert/:ssl_ca_cert_string/:ssl_ca_cert_object Ruby options

  • The tlsCAFile URI option.

If any of these options are given, the server's certificate will be verified only against the specified CA certificate and the default system root certificate store will not be used.

To not perform server TLS certificate verification, which is not recommended, specify the ssl_verify: false Ruby option or the tlsInsecure=true URI option.

The :ssl_ca_cert Ruby option and tlsCAFile URI option can be used with a file containing multiple certificates. All certificates thus referenced will become trust anchors.

The :ssl_ca_cert_object option takes an array of certificates, and thus can also be used to add multiple certificates as certificate authorities.

The :ssl_ca_cert_string option supports specifying only one CA certificate.

Warning

Intermediate certificates must not be provided in files specified by the CA certificate options. Doing so would elevate the intermediate certificates to the status of root certificates, rather than verifying intermediate certificates against the root certificates.

If intermediate certificates need to be used, specify them as part of the client or server TLS certificate files.

If the certificate provided by the server contains an OCSP endpoint URI, the driver will issue an OCSP request to the specified endpoint to verify the validity of the certificate.

The OCSP endpoint check may be disabled by setting the :ssl_verify_ocsp_endpoint Ruby option to false or by setting the tlsDisableOCSPEndpointCheck URI option to true when creating a client.

Note

OCSP endpoint checking is not currently performed when running on JRuby, since JRuby does not correctly expose the OCSP endpoint URI.

When a client is constructed with localhost as the host name, it will attempt an IPv4 connection only (i.e. if localhost resolves to 127.0.0.1 and ::1, the driver will only try to connect to 127.0.0.1).

When a client is constructed with hostnames other than localhost, it will attempt both IPv4 and IPv6 connections depending on the addresses that the hostnames resolve to. The driver respects the order in which getaddrinfo returns the addresses, and will attempt to connect to them sequentially. The first successful connection will be used.

The driver does not currently implement the Happy Eyeballs algorithm.

Where allowed by system configuration and the Ruby language runtime, the driver enables TCP keepalive and, for each of the keepalive parameters listed below, sets the value of the respective parameter to the specified value if the system value can be determined and is higher than the listed driver value:

  • tcp_keepalive_time: 120 seconds

  • tcp_keepalive_intvl: 10 seconds

  • tcp_keepalive_cnt: 9 probes

Note

As of JRuby 9.2.14.0, JRuby does not implement the APIs required to set the keepalive parameters. When using JRuby, the driver will not be able to set the keepalive parameters and the system configuration will be in effect.

To use lower values, or to change the parameters in environments like JRuby that do not expose the required APIs, please adjust the parameters at the system level as described in the MongoDB Diagnostics FAQ keepalive section.

Mongo::Client instances have a connection pool per server that the client is connected to. The pool creates connections on demand to support concurrent MongoDB operations issued by the application. There is no thread-affinity for connections.

The client instance opens one additional connection per known server for monitoring the server's state.

The size of each connection pool is capped at max_pool_size, which defaults to 5. When a thread in the application begins an operation on MongoDB, it tries to retrieve a connection from the pool to send that operation on. If there are some connections available in the pool, it checks out a connection from the pool and uses it for the operation. If there are no connections available and the size of the pool is less than the max_pool_size, a new connection will be created. If all connections are in use and the pool has reached its maximum size, the thread waits for a connection to be returned to the pool by another thread. If max_pool_size is set to zero, there is no limit for the maximum number of connections in the pool.

Each pool has a limit on the number of connections that can be concurrently connecting to a server. This limit is called max_connecting and defaults to 2. If the number of connections that are currently connecting to a server reaches this limit, the pool will wait for a connection attempt to succeed or fail before attempting to create a new connection. If your application has a large number of threads, you may want to increase max_connecting to avoid having threads wait for a connection to be established.

The number of seconds the thread will wait for a connection to become available is configurable. This setting, called wait_queue_timeout, is defined in seconds. If this timeout is reached, a Timeout::Error is raised. The default is 1 second.

As of driver version 2.11, the driver eagerly creates connections up to min_pool_size setting. Prior to driver version 2.11, the driver always created connections on demand. In all versions of the driver, once a connection is established, it will be kept in the pool by the driver as long as the pool size does not exceed min_pool_size.

Note that, if min_pool_size is set to a value greater than zero, the driver will establish that many connections to secondaries in replica set deployments even if the application does not perform secondary reads. The purpose of these connections is to provide faster failover when the primary changes.

Here is an example of estimating the number of connections a multi-threaded application will open: A client connected to a 3-node replica set opens 3 monitoring sockets. It also opens as many sockets as needed to support a multi-threaded application's concurrent operations on each server, up to max_pool_size. If the application only uses the primary (the default), then only the primary connection pool grows and the total connections is at most 8 (5 connections for the primary pool + 3 monitoring connections). If the application uses a read preference to query the secondaries, their pools also grow and the total connections can reach 18 (5 + 5 + 5 + 3).

The default configuration for a Mongo::Client works for most applications:

client = Mongo::Client.new(["localhost:27017"])

Create this client once for each process, and reuse it for all operations. It is a common mistake to create a new client for each request, which is very inefficient and not what the client was designed for.

To support extremely high numbers of concurrent MongoDB operations within one process, increase max_pool_size:

client = Mongo::Client.new(["localhost:27017"], max_pool_size: 200)

To support extremely high numbers of threads that share the same client within one process, increase max_connecting:

client = Mongo::Client.new(["localhost:27017"], max_pool_size: 200, max_connecting: 10)

Any number of threads are allowed to wait for connections to become available, and they can wait the default (1 second) or the wait_queue_timeout setting:

client = Mongo::Client.new(["localhost:27017"], wait_queue_timeout: 0.5)

When #close is called on a client by any thread, all connections are closed:

client.close

Note that when creating a client using the block syntax described above, the client is automatically closed after the block finishes executing.

Note

Applications using Mongoid should follow Mongoid's "Usage with Forking Servers" documentation. The guidance below is provided for applications using the Ruby driver directly.

When using the Mongo Ruby driver in a Web application with a forking web server such as Puma, or when the application otherwise forks, each process (parent and child) must have its own client connections. This is because:

  1. Background Ruby threads, such as those used by the Ruby MongoDB driver to monitor connection state, are not transferred to the child process.

  2. File descriptors like network sockets are shared between parent and child processes, which can cause I/O conflicts.

Regarding (1), if you do not restart the driver's monitoring threads on the child process after forking, although your child may initially appear to function correctly, you will eventually see Mongo::Error::NoServerAvailable exceptions if/when your MongoDB cluster state changes, for example due to network errors or a maintenance event.

Regarding (2), if a child process reuses the parent's file descriptors, you will see Mongo::Error::SocketError errors with messages such as Errno::EPIPE: Broken pipe and EOFError: end of file reached.

When the Ruby driver is used in a web application, if possible, we recommend to not create any Mongo::Client instances in the parent process (prior to the workers being forked), and instead only create client instances in the workers.

Certain advanced use cases, such as Puma's fork_worker option, require Mongo::Client instances to be open in both the parent and child processes. In this case, you must handle client reconnection manually.

To do this, immediately before forking, close any existing client connections on your parent process. This will prevent the parent process from experiencing network and monitoring errors due to the child's reuse of the parent's file descriptors.

# Immediately before fork
client.close

Note

Calling Client#close does not disrupt database operations currently in-flight. Clients will automatically reconnect when you perform new operations.

Then, immediately after forking, reconnect your clients in the newly forked child process, which will respawn the driver's monitoring threads.

# Immediately after fork
client.reconnect

Most web servers provide hooks that can be used by applications to perform actions when the worker processes are forked. The recommended hooks are:

  • For Puma, use before_fork and on_refork to close clients in the parent process and on_worker_boot to reconnect in the child processes.

  • For Unicorn, before_fork to close clients in the parent process and after_fork to reconnect clients in the child processes.

  • For Passenger, starting_worker_process to reconnect clients in the child processes (Passenger does not appear to have a pre-fork hook).

Refer to Mongoid's "Usage with Forking Servers" documentation for further examples.

The client's summary method returns the current state of the client, including servers that the client is monitoring and their state. If any of the servers are not being monitored, this is indicated by the NO-MONITORING flag.

A normally operating client will produce a summary similar to the following:

client.summary
=> "#<Client cluster=#<Cluster
topology=ReplicaSetWithPrimary[localhost:14420,localhost:14421,localhost:14422,localhost:14423,name=ruby-driver-rs,v=1,e=7fffffff000000000000001f]
servers=[#<Server address=localhost:14420 PRIMARY replica_set=ruby-driver-rs pool=#<ConnectionPool size=0 (0-5) used=0 avail=0 pending=0>>,
#<Server address=localhost:14421 SECONDARY replica_set=ruby-driver-rs pool=#<ConnectionPool size=0 (0-5) used=0 avail=0 pending=0>>,
#<Server address=localhost:14422 SECONDARY replica_set=ruby-driver-rs pool=#<ConnectionPool size=0 (0-5) used=0 avail=0 pending=0>>,
#<Server address=localhost:14423 ARBITER replica_set=ruby-driver-rs>]>>"

A client that is missing background threads will produce a summary similar to the following:

client.summary
=> "#<Client cluster=#<Cluster
topology=ReplicaSetWithPrimary[localhost:14420,localhost:14421,localhost:14422,localhost:14423,name=ruby-driver-rs,v=1,e=7fffffff000000000000001f]
servers=[#<Server address=localhost:14420 PRIMARY replica_set=ruby-driver-rs NO-MONITORING pool=#<ConnectionPool size=0 (0-5) used=0 avail=0 pending=0>>,
#<Server address=localhost:14421 SECONDARY replica_set=ruby-driver-rs NO-MONITORING pool=#<ConnectionPool size=0 (0-5) used=0 avail=0 pending=0>>,
#<Server address=localhost:14422 SECONDARY replica_set=ruby-driver-rs NO-MONITORING pool=#<ConnectionPool size=0 (0-5) used=0 avail=0 pending=0>>,
#<Server address=localhost:14423 ARBITER replica_set=ruby-driver-rs>]>>"

The driver implements two mechanisms for retrying reads: modern and legacy. As of driver version 2.9.0, the modern mechanism is used by default, and the legacy mechanism is deprecated.

When the modern mechanism is used, read operations are retried once in the event of a network error, a "not master" error, or a "node is recovering" error. The following operations are covered:

When an operation returns a cursor, only the initial read command can be retried. getMore operations on cursors are not retried by driver version 2.9.0 or newer. Additionally, when a read operation is retried, a new server for the operation is selected; this may result in the retry being sent to a different server from the one which received the first read.

The behavior of modern retryable reads is covered in detail by the retryable reads specification.

Note that the modern retryable reads can only be used with MongoDB 3.6 and higher servers. When used with MongoDB 3.4 and lower servers, Ruby driver version 2.9.0 and higher will not retry reads by default - the application must explicitly request legacy retryable reads by setting the retry_reads: false client option or using retryReads=false URI option.

The legacy read retry behavior of the Ruby driver is available by setting the retry_reads: false client option or passing the retryReads=false URI option to the client.

When using legacy read retry behavior, the number of retries can be set by specifying the max_read_retries client option. When using driver version 2.9.0 or higher, the set of operations which would be retried with legacy retryable reads is identical to the one described above for modern retryable reads. In older driver versions the behavior of legacy retryable writes was different in that some of the operations were not retried.

As of driver version 2.9.0, legacy read retries perform server selection prior to retrying the operation, as modern retriable writes do. In older driver versions read retries would be sent to the same server which the initial read was sent to.

To disable all read retries, set the following client options: retry_reads: false, max_read_retries: 0.

The driver implements two mechanisms for retrying writes: modern and legacy. As of driver version 2.9.0, the modern mechanism is used by default on servers that support it, and the legacy mechanism is deprecated and disabled by default on all server versions.

The following write methods used in day-to-day operations on collections are subject to write retries:

  • collection#insert_one

  • collection#update_one

  • collection#delete_one

  • collection#replace_one

  • collection#find_one_and_update

  • collection#find_one_and_replace

  • collection#find_one_and_delete

  • collection#bulk_write (for all single statement ops, i.e. not for update_many or delete_many)

The modern mechanism will retry failing writes once when the driver is connected to a MongoDB 3.6 or higher replica set or a sharded cluster, because they require an oplog on the serer. Modern mechanism will not retry writes when the driver is connected to a standalone MongoDB server or server versions 3.4 or older.

The following errors will cause writes to be retried:

  • Network errors including timeouts

  • "not master" errors

  • "node is recovering" errors

Prior to retrying the write the driver will perform server selection, since the server that the original write was sent to is likely no longer usable.

If modern retryable writes mechanism is disabled by setting the client option retry_writes: false or by using the retryWrites=false URI option, the driver will utilize the legacy retryable writes mechanism. The legacy mechanism retries writes on the same operations as the modern mechanism. By default the legacy mechanism retries once, like the modern mechanism does; to change the number of retries, set :max_write_retries client option.

The difference between legacy and modern retry mechanisms is that the legacy mechanism retries writes for a different set of errors compared to the modern mechanism, and specifically does not retry writes when a network timeout is encountered.

To disable all write retries, set the following client options: retry_writes: false, max_write_retries: 0.

You can either use the default global driver logger or set your own. To set your own:

Mongo::Logger.logger = other_logger

See the Ruby Logger documentation for more information on the default logger API and available levels.

To change the logger level:

Mongo::Logger.logger.level = Logger::WARN

For more control, a logger can be passed to a client for per-client control over logging.

my_logger = Logger.new(STDOUT)
Mongo::Client.new([ '127.0.0.1:27017' ], :database => 'test', :logger => my_logger )

The default logging truncates logs at 250 characters by default. To turn this off pass an option to the client instance.

Mongo::Client.new([ '127.0.0.1:27017' ], :database => 'test', :truncate_logs => false )

To use wire protocol compression, at least one compressor must be explicitly requested using either the :compressors Ruby option or the compressors URI option. If no compressors are explicitly requested, the driver will not use compression, even if the required dependencies for one or more compressors are present on the system.

The driver chooses the first compressor of the ones requested that is also supported by the server. The driver currently supports zstd, snappy and zlib compressors. zstd compressor is recommended as it produces the highest compression at the same CPU consumption compared to the other compressors. For maximum server compatibility all three compressors can be specified, e.g. as compressors: ["zstd", "snappy", "zlib"].

zstd compressor requires the zstd-ruby library to be installed. snappy compressor requires the snappy library to be installed. If zstd or snappy compression is requested, and the respective library is not loadable, the driver will raise an error during Mongo::Client creation. zlib compression requires the zlib standard library extension to be present.

The server support for various compressors is as follows:

  • zstd requires and is enabled by default in MongoDB 4.2 or higher.

  • snappy requires MongoDB 3.4 or higher and is enabled by default in MongoDB 3.6 or higher.

  • zlib requires MongoDB 3.6 or higher and is enabled by default in MongoDB 4.2 and higher.

Starting with MongoDB 5.0, applications can request that the server behaves in accordance with a particular server API version.

Server API parameters can be specified via the :server_api option to Client. These parameters cannot be provided via a URI.

Currently the only defined API version is "1". It can be requested as follows:

client = Mongo::Client.new(['localhost'], server_api: {version: "1"})

MongoDB server defines API versions as string values. For convenience, if the API version is provided as an integer, the Ruby driver will stringify it and send it to the server as a string:

client = Mongo::Client.new(['localhost'], server_api: {version: 1})

Note that the server may define API versions that are not stringified integers. Applications must not assume that all legal API versions can be expressed as integers.

When a particular API version is requested, operations which are part of that API version behave as specified in that API version. Operations which are not part of the specified API version behave as they would had the API version not been specified at all. Operations whose behavior is subject to the configured API version are commands including command arguments, queries, aggregation pipeline stages and arguments.

Applications may request that the server rejects all operations which are not part of the specified API version by setting the :strict option:

client = Mongo::Client.new(['localhost'], server_api: {version: "1", strict: true})

For example, since the :tailable option is not part of the server API version 1, the following query would fail:

client = Mongo::Client.new(['localhost'], server_api: {version: "1", strict: true})
client['collection'].find({}, tailable: true)
# => Mongo::Error::OperationFailure (BSON field 'FindCommand.tailable' is not allowed with apiStrict:true. (323) (on localhost:27017, modern retry, attempt 1))

Applications may request that the server rejects all operations which are deprecated in the specified API version by setting the :deprecation_errors option:

client = Mongo::Client.new(['localhost'], server_api: {version: "1", deprecation_errors: true})

Note that, as of this writing, there are no deprecated operations in API version "1".

If the server API parameters have been defined on a Client object, they will be sent by the client as part of each [10] executed operation.

[1] getMore commands and commands in transactions do not accept API parameters, thus the driver will not send them in these cases.

MongoDB servers prior to 5.0 do not recognize the API parameters, and will produce a variety of errors should the application configure them. The Ruby driver will send the API parameters to all MongoDB 3.6 and newer servers, but the API parameters should only be configured when the application is communicating with MongoDB 5.0 or newer servers. The API parameters cannot be sent to MongoDB 3.4 and older servers that use the legacy wire protocol; if an application configures the API parameters and connects to MongoDB 3.4 or older servers, the driver will produce an error on every operation.

The command helper permits the application to send manually constructed commands to the server. If the client is not configured with server API parameters, the command helper may be used to issue commands with API parameters:

client.database.command(
ping: 1,
apiVersion: "1",
apiStrict: false,
apiDeprecationErrors: false,
)

If the client is configured with server API parameters, the command helper may not be used to issue commands with server API parameters. This includes the case when the server API parameters provided to the client and to the command helper are identical. If a client is constructed with server API parameters, to send different API parameters (or none at all) a new client must be constructed, either from scratch or using the with method.

The server API parameters may only be specified on the client level. They may not be specified on the database, collection, session, transaction or individual operation level.

Driver's default configuration is suitable for production deployment. In development, some settings can be adjusted to provide a better developer experience.

  • :server_selection_timeout: set this to a low value (e.g., 1) if your MongoDB server is running locally and you start it manually. A low server selection timeout will cause the driver to fail quickly when there is no server running.

Please consider the following when deploying an application using the Ruby driver in production:

  • As of driver version 2.11, the :min_pool_size client option is completely respected - the driver will create that many connections to each server identified as a standalone, primary or secondary. In previous driver versions the driver created connections on demand. Applications using :min_pool_size will see an increase in the number of idle connections to all servers as of driver version 2.11, and especially to secondaries in replica set deployments and to nodes in sharded clusters.

  • If the application is reverse proxied to by another web server or a load balancer, server_selection_timeout should generally be set to a lower value than the reverse proxy's read timeout. For exampe, Heroku request timeout is 30 seconds and is not configurable; if deploying a Ruby application using MongoDB to Heroku, consider lowering server selection timeout to 20 or 15 seconds.

The following is a list of feature flags that the Mongo Ruby Driver provides:

Flag
Description
broken_view_aggregate
When this flag is off, an aggregation done on a view will be executed over the documents included in that view, instead of all documents in the collection. When this flag is on, the view fiter is ignored and the aggregation is applied over all of the documents in the view's collection. (default: true)
broken_view_options
When this flag is turned off, the view options will be correctly propagated to the aggregate, count, count_documents, distinct, and estimated_document_count mehods. When this flag is switched on, the view options will be ignored in those methods. (default: true)
validate_update_replace
Validates that there are no atomic operators (those that start with $) in the root of a replacement document, and that there are only atomic operators at the root of an update document. If this feature flag is on, an error will be raised on an invalid update or replacement document, if not, a warning will be output to the logs. (default: false)

These feature flags can be set directly on the Mongo module or using the options method:

Mongo.validate_update_replace = true
Mongo.options = { validate_update_replace: true }

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