MongoDB Change Streams on localhost with NodeJS

If you want to play with MongoDB Change Streams on your local machine, you will have to convert your mongo instance to a replica set.

There is a tutorial on mongodb.com on how to do that, but I found that I needed some help on getting it working.

Oh, and you will need at least MongoDB 3.6 for Change Streams, so if you have an older version, you have to upgrade it first…

Anywho, here is everything I had to do to make it work on my Windows machine.

First, I stopped my mongo service.

Then I looked into my mongod.cfg file and saw that it looked something like this:

systemLog:
    destination: file
    path: C:/mongodb/log/mongod.log
storage:
    dbPath: C:/mongodb/data

This turned out to be a problem, because we need to start the mongodb server with the replSet parameter set.

Long story short, I ended up converting that mongod.cfg file to this:

# data directory
dbpath=C:/mongodb/data

# log file
logpath=C:/mongodb/log/mongod.log
logappend=true

# replica set name
replSet=rs

Then I started the server, opened the mongo console, and executed:

rs.initiate()

Then I executed:

db.adminCommand( { setFeatureCompatibilityVersion: "3.6" } )

And checked that the change is good by executing:

db.adminCommand( { getParameter: 1, featureCompatibilityVersion: 1 } )

Then I restarted the server once more, just to be safe.

I then I added these few lines into my nodejs code, where I already had mongoose running with the User model:

const userChangeStream = User.watch([],	{fullDocument: "updateLookup"});
userChangeStream.on('change', (change) => {
	console.log(' - user change stream event:\n', change);
});

And I opened Robo 3T, changed the updatedAt field for a user, et voilà:

{
  "operationType": "update",
  "updateDescription": {
    "updatedFields": {
      "updatedAt": "2020-07-04T15:49:34.498Z"
    },
    "removedFields": []
  }
}

Change Streams are comming in 🙂

RethinkDB on Windows using VirtualBox

So, I wanted to install RethinkDB on my Windows machine and found out that it is still not supported. After a couple of weeks I decided to find my own solution.

Here it is.

First, I installed the VirtualBox.
I then downloaded Ubuntu and installed it on the box.

This was the result:

click to enlarge

I had issues with the Ubuntu resolution, so I installed VirtualBox Guest Additions
(note that the menu wording was slightly different then in the tutorial):

I then also ran sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-dkms in the console on Ubuntu.
I believe I restarted the VM several times between steps.

In the end, I was able to pick a better resolution:

I then set the VirtualBox Network Adapter for Ubuntu to Host-Only Adapter:

click to enlarge


This is important for accessing RethinkDB from your host machine.

In Ubuntu, I installed RethinkDB.

I set it up so that it starts at system startup.

And RethinkDB was up and running:

I then edited the instance1.conf file from the previous step, to set the bind=all value:

This is also important for accessing RethinkDB from your host machine.

You really should secure your cluster, even though it is a development system. If you do secure it, do not forget to include the user and password attributes in your connect call.

Once you have everything running, on your VirtualBox Ubuntu window, hover the mouse over the network icon to get the Ubuntu’s IP address.

If you do not see a tooltip with the IP address, make sure you select the Ubuntu window and give it focus, then hover again.

Use that IP address with :8080 appended to it, to access the RethinkDB web interface.

Also, use that IP address in your code, to connect to RethinkDB.

And this is my final result on my Windows machine IDE, with RethinkDB running in the VirtualBox. I ran the two scripts, index.js and listen.js in separate consoles, and when index.js makes a change to the tv_shows table, the listen.js script receives the change.

click to enlarge