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Enable and Configure TLS

On this page

  • Overview
  • Enable TLS
  • Configure Certificates
  • Reference Certificates in a Client
  • Example
  • Additional Information
  • API Documentation

In this guide, you can learn how to use the TLS protocol to secure your connection to a MongoDB deployment. To configure your connection to use TLS, enable the TLS option and provide your certificates for validation when creating a client.

This guide includes the following sections:

  • Enable TLS describes ways to enable TLS on your connection

  • Configure Certificates describes the certificates required to configure TLS

  • Reference Certificates in a Client provides an example of how to create a Config struct to configure your TLS options

  • Additional Information provides links to resources and API documentation for types and methods mentioned in this guide

Tip

To learn more about TLS, see the Wikipedia entry on Transport Layer Security.

You can enable TLS on a connection to your MongoDB instance in one of the following ways:

  • Setting the tls option to true in your connection string

  • Passing an empty Config struct to the SetTLSConfig() method when creating a ClientOptions instance

Select from the following Connection String and ClientOptions tabs to see a corresponding code sample:

uri := "mongodb://<hostname>:<port>?tls=true"
opts := options.Client().ApplyURI(uri)
client, _ := mongo.Connect(context.TODO(), opts)
uri := "<connection string>"
opts := options.Client().ApplyURI(uri).SetTLSConfig(&tls.Config{})
client, _ := mongo.Connect(context.TODO(), opts)

Note

If your connection string uses a DNS SRV record by including the mongodb+srv prefix, TLS is enabled on your connection by default.

For a full list of client options, see Connection Options.

To successfully initiate a TLS request, your application must present cryptographic certificates to prove its identity. Your application's certificates must be stored as PEM files to enable TLS when connecting.

Important

For production use, we recommend that your MongoDB deployment use valid certificates generated and signed by the same certificate authority. For testing, your deployment can use self-signed certificates.

The following list describes the components that your client must present to establish a TLS-enabled connection:

TLS Component
Description
Certificate Authority (CA)
One or more certificate authorities to trust when making a TLS connection.
Client Certificate
A digital certificate that allows the server to verify the identity of your application to establish an encrypted network connection.
Certificate Key
The client certificate private key file. This key is often included within the certificate file itself.
Passphrase
The password to decrypt the private client key if it is encrypted.

You must reference your certificates in your ClientOptions object so that the server can validate them before the client connects. We recommend that you set the TLSConfig field of your ClientOptions instance to a Config struct to configure your TLS connection. Config structs are native to Go and allow you to keep all your TLS options in a single reusable object.

To create a Config instance, import the crypto/tls and crypto/x509 packages. Next, create a Config struct instance and set the relevant struct fields for your configuration.

Within your Config instance, you can set optional fields to configure TLS on your connection. For testing purposes, you can set the InsecureSkipVerify field to true.

Warning

Setting the InsecureSkipVerify field to true disables both certificate and hostname validation.

Specifying this option in a production environment makes your application insecure and potentially vulnerable to expired certificates and foreign processes posing as valid client instances.

To learn more about the Config struct, see the tls.Config API documentation.

This example performs the following actions to create a Config instance and a Client instance with TLS enabled:

  1. Creates variables to reference the certificate filepaths

  2. Creates a CA file pool by using the x509.NewCertPool() method and appends the contents of the CA file

  3. Loads the client certificate files by using the tls.LoadX509KeyPair() method

  4. Instantiates a Config struct and sets the RootCAs and Certificates fields

  5. Passes the Config instance to the SetTLSConfig() method to set the TLSConfig field of the ClientOptions

// Enable TLS on a connection by using the Go driver
package main
import (
"context"
"crypto/tls"
"crypto/x509"
"os"
"go.mongodb.org/mongo-driver/mongo"
"go.mongodb.org/mongo-driver/mongo/options"
)
func main() {
caFile := "<path to CA certificate>"
certFile := "<path to public client certificate>"
keyFile := "<path to private client key>"
// Loads CA certificate file
caCert, err := os.ReadFile(caFile)
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
caCertPool := x509.NewCertPool()
if ok := caCertPool.AppendCertsFromPEM(caCert); !ok {
panic("Error: CA file must be in PEM format")
}
// Loads client certificate files
cert, err := tls.LoadX509KeyPair(certFile, keyFile)
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
// Instantiates a Config instance
tlsConfig := &tls.Config{
RootCAs: caCertPool,
Certificates: []tls.Certificate{cert},
}
uri := "<connection string>"
// Sets TLS options in options instance
opts := options.Client().ApplyURI(uri).SetTLSConfig(tlsConfig)
// Connects to MongoDB with TLS enabled
client, err := mongo.Connect(context.TODO(), opts)
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
defer func() {
if err = client.Disconnect(context.TODO()); err != nil {
panic(err)
}
}()
}

To learn more about enabling TLS on a connection, see the following Server manual documentation:

To learn more about the methods and types mentioned in this guide, see the following API documentation:

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