How do I access Meteor's MongoDB from another client, while Meteor is running?
PythonMongodbMeteorPython Problem Overview
I would like to access Meteor's MongoDB from a Python client, while Meteor is running.
I can't start a mongod because Meteor's database is locked.
How do I access the database from another client?
Python Solutions
Solution 1 - Python
The meteor command provides a clean way. To get the URL for the running mongod:
meteor mongo -U
which you can parse from python.
Solution 2 - Python
Meteor starts the mongod for you on port 3002 when you run the meteor command, and stores the mongo data file in .meteor/local/db
Output from ps aux | grep 'mongod' shows the mongod command that meteor uses:
/usr/local/meteor/mongodb/bin/mongod --bind_ip 127.0.0.1 --smallfiles --port 3002 --dbpath /path/to/your/project/.meteor/local/db
So just connect your mongo client accordingly. In python:
>>> import pymongo
>>> con = pymongo.Connection(host='127.0.0.1', port=3002)
>>> con.database_names()
[u'meteor', u'local']
UPDATE: unfortunately making changes directly in mongo in this way won't reflect live in the app, but the changes will be reflected on a full page (re)load.
Solution 3 - Python
Use the Meteor deployment instructions
The command will look like this:
PORT=3000 MONGO_URL=mongodb://localhost:27017/myapp node bundle/main.js
Solution 4 - Python
You can also find it from within server side code using:
process.env.MONGO_URL
Even if you don't set this environment variable when running, it gets set to the default. This seems to be how it is found internally (packages/mongo/remote_collection_driver.js)
The one is given by meteor mongo -U seems to reconstruct the default domain/ip and db-name, but use the port stored in the file.
You can put this anywhere in the server folder, and read it from the command line.
console.log('db url: ' + process.env.MONGO_URL);
I set up a webpage to display it to double check in the selenium tests that we are using the test database, and not overwriting live data.
Solution 5 - Python
And here a shell script to get Mongo URI and Mongo Database:
#!/bin/bash -eux
read -s -p "Enter Password: " password
cmd=$(meteor mongo --url myapp.meteor.com << ENDPASS
$password
ENDPASS)
mongo_uri=$(echo $cmd | cut -f2 -d" ")
mongo_db=$(echo $mongo_uri | cut -d/ -f 4)
#my_client_command_with MONGODB_URI=$mongo_uri MONGO_DB=$mongo_db
Solution 6 - Python
In regards to a 10 second delay on updates: Tail the MongoDB oplog! There's more information on how to do it here:
http://meteorhacks.com/lets-scale-meteor.html
Make sure you install smart collections and use those (instantiate your collections using Meteor.SmartCollection instead of Meteor.Collection) and you will find the updates are essentially immediate.