Using Liquibase MongoDB Pro with MongoDB Atlas

MongoDB Atlas is a fully managed cloud database service provided by MongoDB, Inc. It allows users to deploy, manage, and scale MongoDB databases without the need to handle the underlying infrastructure.

Verified database versions

  • 7
  • 6
  • 5

For more information on Liquibase Pro and MongoDB version requirements, see Verified database versions.

Prerequisites

Learn more about each step at the links below.

  1. Create a MongDB Atlas Account
  2. Deploy a Free Cluster
  3. Add Your Connection IP Address to Your IP Access List

Configure MongoDB

  1. Configure User Roles for MongoDB before continuing.
  2. Download and Install mongosh if it is not already installed on your machine.

    3. Note: mongosh is mandatory to use MongoDB with Liquibase Pro and it must be accessible to Liquibase. We recommend that mongosh is in the system PATH environment variable. If it is not, that location of mongosh must be manually specified in the liquibase.mongosh.conf file.

  3. Download Java 11. The MongoDB Pro extension requires it.

    4. Tip: Java 11 may already be present on your machine if you used the installer to install Liquibase. We recommend installing Liquibase with Java 11 with the installer asset available on GitHub.

Install drivers

CLI users

To use Liquibase and MongoDB Atlas, you must download the JAR file that contains the Liquibase MongoDB Pro extension and the JDBC drivers.

To use the Liquibase CLI, place your JAR file(s) in the liquibase/lib directory.

Maven users

To use Liquibase with Maven, you must instead include the driver JAR(s) as a dependency in your pom.xml file. Using this information, Maven automatically downloads the driver JAR from Maven Central when you build your project. 

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.liquibase.ext</groupId>
    <artifactId>liquibase-commercial-mongodb</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.0</version>
</dependency>

Configure connection

  1. Ensure your MongoDB database is configured. See Install MongoDB for more information.

  2. Ensure your Liquibase Pro license key is specified. For example, in a liquibase.properties file (defaults file):

    licenseKey: zQl8kNZjZgSp9LvqWQFAtGwiHrpg97UyAfQrNSiJQBCDH8FQPdDzANUpIe4Bj3CZA2IXgDBaoYZFvMw0E/s4JcECB3/A6jO+...

  3. Choose an authentication method. This guide includes SCRAM (username/password), X.509 Certificate, AWS IAM, and OIDC.

    4. Users may prefer the SCRAM method because of simplicity and increased security. The server stores passwords in a iterated hash format. This makes offline attacks harder, and decreases the impact of database breaches.

    MongoDB Atlas configuration

    1. Create a Database User for Your Cluster
    2. Add or change Database User role to Atlas admin (Security > Database Access > Edit > Database User Privileges > Built-in Role)

      3. Note: Learn more about database users and built in roles here: Modify Database Users and Built In Roles.

    Liquibase configuration

    Once MongoDB Atlas is configured, you must then configure Liquibase.

    1. Add the liquibase.command.url property to the properties file, environment variables, or command line options in the following format:
      2. liquibase.command.url: mongodb+srv://cluster0.abcd123.mongodb.net/lbcat
    2. Add the liquibase.command.username and liquibase.command.password properties to the same configuration file, environment variables, or command line. These are the same credentials entered in Step 1 above titled: Create a Database User for Your Cluster

Test connection

  1. Create a text file called changelog (.js, .yaml, .json, or .xml) in your project directory and add a changeset.

    2. You can write Liquibase changelogs in the MongoDB Pro extension in three ways:

    • Native MongoDB Shell (mongosh) scripts in MongoDB Query Language (MQL): let developers use Liquibase without modifying existing MQL scripts, which may be JavaScript (.js) files.
    • Formatted Mongo changelogs (MongoDB Pro 1.3.0+): add Liquibase changeset metadata to your MQL scripts to use features like rollback, contexts, labels, and the include and includeAll tags. These must be saved as .js files.
    • YAML, JSON, and XML modeled changelogs: specify changes for Liquibase to deploy without the need for MQL scripts. However, you can still deploy MQL scripts in YAML, JSON, and XML changelogs by using the mongo and mongoFile Change Types. Using these Change Types requires you to specify mongosh as the value of the runWith attribute for all mongo and mongoFile changesets.

    The MongoDB Pro extension lets you use MongoDB's native language of MongoDB Query Language (MQL), which you may be storing in JavaScript files, in Liquibase changesets and Change Types. This is possible because MongoDB Shell (mongosh) is compatible with Liquibase Pro. For more information, see MongoDB: Write Scripts. Example syntax:

    db.createCollection('customers');

    Tip: The preceding examples show only the mongo and mongoFile Change Types for Liquibase Pro. For a list of all Liquibase Pro and Liquibase Open Source Change Types for MongoDB, including Change Types that you can without the mongosh native executor, see Liquibase Change Types for MongoDB.

  2. Navigate to your project folder in the CLI and run the Liquibase status command to see whether the connection is successful:

    3. Note: You can specify arguments in the CLI or keep them in the Liquibase properties file.

    If your connection is successful, you'll see a message like this:

    4 changesets have not been applied to <your_connection_url>
Liquibase command 'status' was executed successfully.
  3. Then execute these changes to your database with the update command:
    4. liquibase update --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>

    If your update is successful, Liquibase runs each changeset and displays a summary message ending with:

    Liquibase: Update has been successful.
Liquibase command 'update' was executed successfully.
  4. From a database UI tool, ensure that your database contains the myCollection object you added along with the DATABASECHANGELOG collection and DATABASECHANGELOGLOCK collection.

    5. Tip: You can use MongoDB Compass to easily view collections in your database. For example, run the commands use myDatabase and db.myCollection.find().

Now you're ready to start making deployments with Liquibase!

Related links