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Configure authentication in MongoDB

Percona Backup for MongoDB uses the authentication and authorization subsystem of MongoDB. This means that to authenticate Percona Backup for MongoDB, you need to:

Create the pbm user

Info: Execute this step on a primary node of each replica set. In a sharded cluster, this means on every shard replica set and the config server replica set.

  1. Create the role that allows any action on any resource.

    db.getSiblingDB("admin").createRole({ "role": "pbmAnyAction",
      "privileges": [
         { "resource": { "anyResource": true },
           "actions": [ "anyAction" ]
         }
      ],
      "roles": []
   });

  2. Create the user and assign the role you created to it.

    db.getSiblingDB("admin").createUser({user: "pbmuser",
       "pwd": "secretpwd",
       "roles" : [
          { "db" : "admin", "role" : "readWrite", "collection": "" },
          { "db" : "admin", "role" : "backup" },
          { "db" : "admin", "role" : "clusterMonitor" },
          { "db" : "admin", "role" : "restore" },
          { "db" : "admin", "role" : "pbmAnyAction" }
       ]
    });

You can specify the username and password values and other options of the createUser command as you require so long as the roles shown above are granted.

Tip

To list all the host+port lists for the shard replica sets in a cluster, run the following command:

db.getSiblingDB(“config”).shards.find({}, {“host”: true, “_id”: false})

The replica set name at the front of these “host” strings will have to be placed as a “/?replicaSet=xxxx” argument in the parameters part of the connection URI (see below).

Set the MongoDB connection URI for pbm-agent

Info: Execute this step needs on each node where pbm-agent is installed.

A pbm-agent process connects to its localhost mongod node with a standalone type of connection.

To set the MongoDB URI connection string means to configure a service init script (pbm-agent.service systemd unit file) that runs a pbm-agent.

The pbm-agent.service systemd unit file includes the environment file. You set the MongoDB URI connection string for the PBM_MONGODB_URI variable within the environment file for every pbm-agent.

How to find the environment file

The path to the environment file is specified in the pbm-agent.service systemd unit file.

In Ubuntu and Debian, the pbm-agent.service systemd unit file is at the path /lib/systemd/system/pbm-agent.service.

In Red Hat and CentOS, the path to this file is /usr/lib/systemd/system/pbm-agent.service.

Example of pbm-agent.service systemd unit file

[Unit]
Description=pbm-agent
After=time-sync.target network.target

[Service]
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/default/pbm-agent
Type=simple
User=pbm
Group=pbm
PermissionsStartOnly=true
ExecStart=/usr/bin/pbm-agent

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Edit the environment file /etc/default/pbm-agent and specify the MongoDB connection URI string for the pbm user to the local mongod node.

For example, if mongod node listens on port 27017, the MongoDB connection URI string will be the following:

PBM_MONGODB_URI="mongodb://pbmuser:secretpwd@localhost:27017/?authSource=admin"

Edit the environment file /etc/sysconfig/pbm-agent and specify the MongoDB connection URI string for the pbm user to the local mongod node.

For example, if mongod node listens on port 27017, the MongoDB connection URI string will be the following:

PBM_MONGODB_URI="mongodb://pbmuser:secretpwd@localhost:27017/?authSource=admin"

Passwords with special characters

If the password includes special characters like #, @, / and so on, you must convert these characters using the percent-encoding mechanism when passing them to Percona Backup for MongoDB. For example, the password secret#pwd should be passed as follows in PBM_MONGODB_URI:

PBM_MONGODB_URI="mongodb://pbmuser:secret%23pwd@localhost:27017/?authSource=admin"

Set the MongoDB connection URI for pbm CLI

Info: Execute this step only on a host at which you will use pbm CLI.

Set the MongoDB URI connection string for pbm CLI in your shell. This allows you to call pbm commands without the --mongodb-uri flag.

Use the following command:

export PBM_MONGODB_URI="mongodb://pbmuser:secretpwd@localhost:27017/?authSource=admin&replSetName=xxxx"

For more information about what connection string to specify, refer to the pbm connection string section.

External authentication support in Percona Backup for MongoDB

In addition to SCRAM, Percona Backup for MongoDB supports other authentication methods that you use in MongoDB or Percona Server for MongoDB.

For external authentication, you create the pbm user in the format used by the authentication system and set the MongoDB connection URI string to include both the authentication method and authentication source.

For example, for Kerberos authentication , create the pbm user in the $external database in the format <username@KERBEROS_REALM> (e.g. pbm@PERCONATEST.COM).

Specify the following string for MongoDB connection URI:

PBM_MONGODB_URI="mongodb://<username>%40<KERBEROS_REALM>@<hostname>:27018/?authMechanism=GSSAPI&authSource=%24external&replSetName=xxxx"

Note that you must first obtain the ticket for the pbm user with the kinit command before you start the pbm-agent:

$ sudo -u {USER} kinit pbm

Note that the {USER} is the user that you will run the pbm-agent process.

For authentication and authorization via Native LDAP , you only create roles for LDAP groups in MongoDB as the users are stored and managed on the LDAP server. However, you still define the $external database as your authentication source:

PBM_MONGODB_URI="mongodb://<user>:<password>@<hostname>:27017/?authMechanism=PLAIN&authSource=%24external&replSetName=xxxx"

When using AWS IAM authentication , create the pbm user in the $external database with the username that contains the ARN of the IAM user/role.

arn:aws:iam::<ARN>:user/<user_name>

arn:aws:iam::<ARN>:role/<role_name>

The MongoDB connection URI string then looks like the following:

PBM_MONGODB_URI="mongodb://<aws_access_key_id>:<aws_secret_access_key>@<hostname>:27017/?authMechanism=MONGODB-AWS&authSource=%24external&replSetName=xxxx"

Next steps

Configure backup storage

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Last update: April 24, 2024
Created: April 24, 2024