Authenticate a User¶

To authenticate as a user, you must provide a username, password, and the authentication database associated with that user.

Important

It is not possible to switch between users in the same mongosh session. Authenticating as a different user means the session has the privileges of both authenticated users. To switch between users exit and relaunch mongosh.

Using mongosh, you can:

Authenticate during Connection
Authenticate after Connection

Start mongosh with the -u <username>, -p, and the --authenticationDatabase <database> command line options:

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mongosh --port 27017  --authenticationDatabase \
    "admin" -u "myUserAdmin" -p

Enter your password when prompted.

Using mongosh, connect to the mongod or mongos instance:

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mongosh --port 27017

In mongosh, switch to the authentication database (in this case, admin), and use the db.auth(<username>, <pwd>) method or the authenticate command to authenticate against the authentication database:

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use admin
db.auth("myUserAdmin", passwordPrompt()) // or cleartext password

Tip

The passwordPrompt() method prompts you to enter the password. You can also specify your password directly as a string. We recommend to use the passwordPrompt() method to avoid the password being visible on your screen and potentially leaking the password to your shell history.

Enter the password when prompted.

For examples using a MongoDB driver, see the :driver:`driver documentation </>`.

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