MongoDB Production Security Hardening: Auth, RBAC & TLS

Security Issue Analysis

MongoDB does not enable authentication by default during installation, which poses serious security risks.

User Management Operations

Create User

use admin
db.createUser({
  user: "admin",
  pwd: "admin123",
  roles: [{role: "root", db: "admin"}]
})

Modify Password

db.changeUserPassword('admin', 'admin@123')

Authentication Startup Configuration

Configure in mongod.conf:

security:
  authorization: enabled

Role Details

Database-Level Roles

• read: Read data from specified database
• readWrite: Read/write permissions
• dbAdmin: Index management
• userAdmin: User account management
• dbOwner: Full database control

Cross-Database Roles

• readAnyDatabase: Read permissions for all databases
• readWriteAnyDatabase: Read/write permissions for all databases
• userAdminAnyDatabase: Global user management

Cluster Administration Roles

• clusterAdmin: Sharding management, replica set configuration
• root: Superuser permissions

Common Errors

Error	Fix
Authentication failed	Check authSource parameter
not authorized on db	Add corresponding database role permissions
Cannot connect remotely	Check bindIp configuration