dbowner "not authorized" to update user?

Question

I'm trying to update the roles of a user.

So I tried the following command with the admin-user (which has the dbOwner and userAdmin priv. and is created directly on the UnitTestDb)

db.runCommand({ "updateUser" : "unittestuser1", "roles" : [{ "role" : "Testentity_readwrite", "db" : "UnitTestDb" }, { "role" : "Testentity_read", "db" : "UnitTestDb" }] }

I'm running this command directly on the "UnitTestDb" and the role "Testentity_read" is also directly created in this database.

I'm getting the following error:

{
    "ok" : 0,
    "errmsg" : "not authorized on UnitTestDb to execute command { updateUser: \"unittestuser1\", roles: [ { role: \"Testentity_readwrite\", db: \"UnitTestDb\" }, { role: \"Testentity_read\", db: \

"UnitTestDb\" } ] }", "code" : 13 }

I am able to update the customData for the user but not the role...

Can someone tell me which privilege or role my admin user needs to execute this update?

dbOwner should have full access to database he was created on ( from mongodb.org: The database owner can perform any administrative action on the database. This role combines the privileges granted by the readWrite, dbAdmin and userAdmin roles.)

Tobias

John Petrone John Petrone · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-06T17:24:02

I believe the issue is that updateUser requires additional rights on all databases. From the documentation:

Required Access

You must have access that includes the revokeRole action on all databases in order to update a user’s roles array.

You must have the grantRole action on a role’s database to add a role to a user.

Note the requirement for revokeRole on all databases, not just on the database involved.

I'd try using the db.grantRolesToUsers() command instead, as it does not require the same level of rights.

http://docs.mongodb.org/manual/reference/method/db.grantRolesToUser/

Required Access

You must have the grantRole action on a database to grant a role on that database.

Alternatively you can make certain that user running the updateUser command has the revokeRole right on all databases.

dbowner "not authorized" to update user?

1 Answers