mongotail 2.4.1

Mongotail, Log all MongoDB queries in a "tail"able way.

Mongotail, Log all MongoDB queries in a “tail”able way.

mongotail is a command line tool to outputs any operation from a Mongo database in the standard output. You can see the operations collected by the database profiler from a console, or redirect the result to a file, pipes it with grep or other command line tool, etc.

The syntax is very similar to mongo client, and the output, as like tail command will be the latest 10 lines of logging.

But the more interesting feature (also like tail) is to see the changes in “real time” with the -f option, and occasionally filter the result with grep to find a particular operation.

Syntax

Usage:

mongotail [db address] [options]

“db address” can be:

foo	foo database on local machine (IPv4 connection)
:1234/foo	foo database on local machine on port 1234
192.169.0.5/foo	foo database on 192.168.0.5 machine
remotehost/foo	foo database on remotehost machine
192.169.0.5:9999/foo	foo database on 192.168.0.5 machine on port 9999
“[::1]:9999/foo”	foo database on ::1 machine on port 9999 (IPv6 connection)

Optional arguments:

-u USERNAME, --username USERNAME
	username for authentication
-p PASSWORD, --password PASSWORD
	password for authentication. If username is given and password isn’t, it’s asked from tty
-b AUTH_DATABASE, --authenticationDatabase AUTH_DATABASE
	database to use to authenticate the user. If not specified, the user will be authenticated against the database specified in the [db address]
-n N, --lines N
	output the last N lines, instead of the last 10. Use ALL value to show all lines
-f, --follow	output appended data as the log grows
-l LEVEL, --level LEVEL
	specifies the profiling level, which is either 0 for no profiling, 1 for only slow operations, or 2 for all operations. Or use with ‘status’ word to show the current level configured. Uses this option once before logging the database
-s MS, --slowms MS
	sets the threshold in milliseconds for the profile to consider a query or operation to be slow (use with –level 1). Or use with ‘status’ word to show the current milliseconds configured
-m, --metadata	extra metadata fields to show. Known fields (may vary depending of the operation and the MongoDB version): millis, nscanned, docsExamined, execStats, lockStats …
-i, --info	get information about the MongoDB server we’re connected to
-v, --verbose	verbose mode (not recommended). All the operations will printed in JSON without format and with all the information available from the log
--ssl	creates the connection to the server using SSL
--sslCertFile SSL_CERT_FILE
	certificate file used to identify the local connection against MongoDB
--sslKeyFile SSL_KEY_FILE
	private keyfile used to identify the local connection against MongoDB. If included with the certfile then only the sslCertFile is needed
--sslCertReqs SSL_CERT_REQS
	specifies whether a certificate is required from the other side of the connection, and whether it will be validated if provided. It must be any of three values: 0 (certificate ignored), 1 (not required, but validated if provided), 2 (required and validated)
--sslCACerts SSL_CA_CERTS
	file that contains a set of concatenated “certification authority” certificates, which are used to validate certificates passed from the other end of the connection
--sslPEMPassword SSL_PEM_PASSPHRASE
	password or passphrase for decrypting the private key in sslCertFile or sslKeyFile. Only necessary if the private key is encrypted
--sslCrlFile SSL_CRLFILE
	path to a PEM or DER formatted certificate revocation list
-h, --help	show this help message and exit
-V, --version	show program’s version number and exit

Enabling Database Profiling and Showing Logs

First you have to activate in the current database the profiler, so MongoDB will capture all the activity in a special collection that is read by Mongotail.

You can achieve this with the -l, --level option. For example, if you want to see the logs from MYDATABASE, first you have to execute:

$ mongotail MYDATABASE -l 2

Then you can see the latest logged records with:

$ mongotail MYDATABASE
2015-02-24 19:17:01.194 QUERY  [Company] : {"_id": ObjectId("548b164144ae122dc430376b")}. 1 returned.
2015-02-24 19:17:01.195 QUERY  [User] : {"_id": ObjectId("549048806b5d3db78cf6f654")}. 1 returned.
2015-02-24 19:17:01.196 UPDATE [Activation] : {"_id": "AB524"}, {"_id": "AB524", "code": "f2cbad0c"}. 1 updated.
2015-02-24 19:17:10.729 COUNT  [User] : {"active": {"$exists": true}, "firstName": {"$regex": "mac"}}
...

To Connect with SSL or a remote Mongo instance, check the options with mongotail --help.

NOTE: The level chosen can affect performance. It also can allow the server to write the content of queries to the log, which might have information security implications for your deployment. Remember to setup your database profiling level to 0 again after debugging your data:

$ mongotail MYDATABASE -l 0

A step-by-step guide of how to use Mongotail and the latest features is here.

Installation

See INSTALL.rst guide to install from sources. To install from PyPI repositories, follow these instructions depending of your OS:

Linux Installation

You can install the latest stable version with pip in your environment, but it’s recommended to install it with Python 3 (pip3):

$ pip3 install mongotail

Execute this command with administrator/root privileges (in Debian/Ubuntu Linux distribution prepend sudo to the command).

You have to be installed pip / pip3 tool first. In Debian/Ubuntu Linux distribution you can install it with (also with root privileges):

$ apt-get install python3-pip

Install mongotail in the user space without root privileges is also possible with:

$ pip3 install --user mongotail

But the mongotail executable will be installed in the $HOME/.local/bin folder, that in most Linux distributions is not added to the $PATH variable to be able to execute the command without the need to use the full path ($HOME/.local/bin/mongotail). So either add $HOME/.local/bin to the $PATH variable or execute Mongotail with the full path each time.

Mac OSX Installation

First you need to install the Python package manager pip in your environment, and then like Linux to install Mongotail you can execute sudo pip install mongotail from the command line, but also it can be installed with easy_install, an old Python package manager present in most OSX versions. Try this:

$ sudo easy_install mongotail

Docker

Run with Docker (you don’t need to download the source code):

$ docker run -it --rm mrsarm/mongotail --help

If you want to connect with a database also running locally in a container, you have to link both instances (see howto in the Docker documentation), or if the db is a local instance running without Docker, remember to use the local IP of your computer because the localhost address (IP 127.0.0.1) points to the container, not to your host. Eg.:

$ docker run -it --rm mrsarm/mongotail 192.168.0.21/test

If it does not work, it may be related with network access rules, or because the mongo instance is not listening remote connections, check to have properly configured the IP Binding.

About

Project: https://github.com/mrsarm/mongotail

Authors: (2015-2021) Mariano Ruiz <mrsarm@g…l.com>

Changelog: CHANGELOG.rst

More guides: http://mrsarm.blogspot.com.ar/search/label/Mongotail

License: GPL-3