MongoDB: The Definitive Guide, 2nd Edition

Appendix A. Installing MongoDB

MongoDB binaries are available for Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, and Solaris. This means that, on most platforms, you can download an archive from http://www.mongodb.org/downloads, inflate it, and run the binary.

The MongoDB server requires a directory it can write database files to and a port it can listen for connections on. This section covers the entire install on the two variants of system: Windows and everything else (Linux, Max, Solaris).

When we speak of “installing MongoDB,” generally what we are talking about is setting up mongod, the core database server. mongod can be used as a standalone server or as a member of a replica set. Most of the time, this will be the MongoDB process you are using.

Choosing a Version

MongoDB uses a fairly simple versioning scheme: even-point releases are stable, and odd-point releases are development versions. For example, anything starting with 2.4 is a stable release, such as 2.4.0, 2.4.1, and 2.4.15. Anything starting with 2.5 is a development release, such as 2.5.0, 2.5.2, or 2.5.10. Let’s take the 2.4/2.5 release as a sample case to demonstrate how the versioning timeline works:

1. MongoDB 2.4.0 is released. This is a major release and will have an extensive changelog.

2. After the developers start working on the milestones for 2.6 (the next major stable release), they release 2.5.0. This is the new development branch that is fairly similar to 2.4.0 but probably with an extra feature or two and maybe some bugs.

3. As the developers ...