Unable to use vagrant as a group (and unable to use chown) on OS X

MongoDB University M103: Basic Cluster Administration
#1

chapter 1 lab says:

Using what you know about the configuration file and Linux user groups, please complete the following:

  • create a new folder /var/mongodb/db/ and allow mongod to write files to this directory
    • create this directory with sudo, because /var is owned by root
    • use chown to change the owner of this directory to vagrant:vagrant
  • edit your config file to use this new directory as the dbpath

I’ve wasted 90 minutes on this and got nowhere. I really want to learn mongo not the OS terminal.

Can someone advise how to change the permissions for /var/mongodb/db/ as per the instructions.

Additional info: I use sudo -s prior to trying to set the permissions. I get an error saying illegal group name

#2

Hi @mikeh1980,

I’m sorry that you are facing this issue. I really appreciate your feedback.

If you have created the directories (/var/mongodb/db/) as mentioned in the lab then please run this command for changing the owner of this new directory to vagrant.

 sudo chown vagrant:vagrant /var/mongodb/db

Thanks,
Shubham Ranjan
Curriculum Support Engineer

#3

maybe i wasn’t clear enough.

I get an illegal group name error. I stated that I did sudo -s and then the chown. You advised me to do it all in one line. What is the difference? Answer: nothing whatsoever.

sudo chown vagrant:vagrant /var/mongodb/db

returns:

chown: vagrant: illegal group name

Using vagrant + virtual box was supposedly introduced so as to eliminate problem. It looks like I am going to have to skip this portion of the lesson and hope that this setup is not needed later on.

#4

@mikeh1980 I suspect that you’re running this command directly on your Mac terminal. If this is the case, you need to ssh into the vagrant VM from your OS X terminal because that’s where all the labs will be performed. The instructions for this were in Chapter 0.

#5

from vagrant I get

chown: cannot access ‘/var/mongodb/db’: No such file or directory

#6

Forgot about it. I will skip past this

#7

How do i withdraw from M103 without registering a fail?

#8

You first need to create the directory. var exists but mongodb and db sub directories need to be created.

Not entirely sure. On your My Courses page you should see a list of all your courses, from there you should be able to de-register… it won’t mark you down I don’t think.

#9

contrary to the message the directories DO exist. I’d send a screen grab but I am really over this. 2+ hours

Are there any courses that just focus on mongo without any crazy setups on the users computer?

#10

It’s generally fine once you’re setup. It would be interesting to see though.

Depends on the path you’re following, DBA or Developer?

#11

hobby developer. I have done parts 1 & 3 and didn’t want to do part 2 part it will expire so decided to do it before getting on with the things i was interested in (4,5,6)

#12

Some setup is required for 4, however it doesn’t use vagrant or a VM. 5 and 6 have no vagrant dependency.