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Asked: 2026-05-27T01:36:01+00:00

I needed to learn node.js and mongodb which requires me to use my mac

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I needed to learn node.js and mongodb which requires me to use my mac osx, so I am new to the shell command line interface.

Problem: When I followed the instructs on mongodb website and installed mongodb and tried to run, I get the following error messages. Any idea what went wrong?

What I Did:

  1. brew install mongodb
  2. sudo mkdir -p /data/db
  3. sudo chmod 0755 /data/db
  4. sudo chown mongod:mongod /data/db

Error: chown: mongod: Invalid argument

What I Did Next:

  1. mongod

Error: 

Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 [initandlisten] MongoDB starting : pid=28304 port=27017 dbpath=/data/db/ 64-bit host=MacBook-Air.local
Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 [initandlisten] db version v2.0.1, pdfile version 4.5
Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 [initandlisten] git version: 3a5cf0e2134a830d38d2d1aae7e88cac31bdd684
Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 [initandlisten] build info: Darwin erh2.10gen.cc 9.6.0 Darwin Kernel Version 9.6.0: Mon Nov 24 17:37:00 PST 2008; root:xnu-1228.9.59~1/RELEASE_I386 i386 BOOST_LIB_VERSION=1_40
Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 [initandlisten] options: {}
Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 [initandlisten] exception in initAndListen: 10309 Unable to create/open lock file: /data/db/mongod.lock errno:13 Permission denied Is a mongod instance already running?, terminating
Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 dbexit: 
Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 [initandlisten] shutdown: going to close listening sockets...
Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 [initandlisten] shutdown: going to flush diaglog...
Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 [initandlisten] shutdown: going to close sockets...
Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 [initandlisten] shutdown: waiting for fs preallocator...
Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 [initandlisten] shutdown: lock for final commit...
Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 [initandlisten] shutdown: final commit...
Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 [initandlisten] shutdown: closing all files...
Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 [initandlisten] closeAllFiles() finished
Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 [initandlisten] shutdown: removing fs lock...
Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 [initandlisten] couldn't remove fs lock errno:9 Bad file descriptor
Mon Nov 21 18:55:08 dbexit: really exiting now

Doing a ls -ld /data/db gives:

drwxr-xr-x  2 root  wheel  68 Nov 21 18:46 /data/db
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Nyxynyx-

    It looks like a file permissions problem. You created the /data/db as root, so root is the owner, and the chown command failed (do you already have a user on your system named mongod? if not, that command will fail) so the owner was still root. But then you ran mongod as a normal user so it was unable to create any lock file in the data directory.
    You could:

    1. Run mongod as root
    2. Or, create a mongod user, and run “chown” again for mongod, and run mongod as the user mongod
    3. Or, change the ownership of the data directory to your current user account, and run mongo as your user account.
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