mongod: unrecognized service , mongod.service is present already

I had the same problem after pulling the ubuntu:17:04 docker image and installing mongodb-org

It looks like Mongodb created a systemd startup file which was already replaced by upstart.

As a workaround:

  1. Create a new file /etc/init/mongod.conf (requires sudo rights). You can use: sudo gedit /etc/init/mongod.conf

  2. Paste the following contents into the newly created upstart file:

    # Ubuntu upstart file at /etc/init/mongod.conf
    
    # Recommended ulimit values for mongod or mongos
    # See http://docs.mongodb.org/manual/reference/ulimit/#recommended-settings
    #
    limit fsize unlimited unlimited
    limit cpu unlimited unlimited
    limit as unlimited unlimited
    limit nofile 64000 64000
    limit rss unlimited unlimited
    limit nproc 64000 64000
    
    kill timeout 300 # wait 300s between SIGTERM and SIGKILL.
    
    pre-start script
      DAEMONUSER=${DAEMONUSER:-mongodb}
      if [ ! -d /var/lib/mongodb ]; then
        mkdir -p /var/lib/mongodb && chown mongodb:mongodb /var/lib/mongodb
      fi
      if [ ! -d /var/log/mongodb ]; then
        mkdir -p /var/log/mongodb && chown mongodb:mongodb /var/log/mongodb
      fi
      touch /var/run/mongodb.pid
      chown $DAEMONUSER /var/run/mongodb.pid
    end script
    
    start on runlevel [2345]
    stop on runlevel [06]
    
    script
      ENABLE_MONGOD="yes"
      CONF=/etc/mongod.conf
      DAEMON=/usr/bin/mongod
      DAEMONUSER=${DAEMONUSER:-mongodb}
      DAEMONGROUP=${DAEMONGROUP:-mongodb}
    
      if [ -f /etc/default/mongod ]; then . /etc/default/mongod; fi
    
      # Handle NUMA access to CPUs (SERVER-3574)
      # This verifies the existence of numactl as well as testing that the command works
      NUMACTL_ARGS="--interleave=all"
      if which numactl >/dev/null 2>/dev/null && numactl $NUMACTL_ARGS ls / >/dev/null 2>/dev/null
      then
        NUMACTL="$(which numactl) -- $NUMACTL_ARGS"
        DAEMON_OPTS=${DAEMON_OPTS:-"--config $CONF"}
      else
        NUMACTL=""
        DAEMON_OPTS="-- "${DAEMON_OPTS:-"--config $CONF"}
      fi
    
      if [ "x$ENABLE_MONGOD" = "xyes" ]
      then
        exec start-stop-daemon --start \
            --chuid $DAEMONUSER:$DAEMONGROUP \
            --pidfile /var/run/mongodb.pid \
            --make-pidfile \
            --exec $NUMACTL $DAEMON $DAEMON_OPTS
      fi
    end script
    
  3. Now, you can use the following commands:

    sudo service mongod start

    sudo service mongod stop

    sudo service mongod status

reference: https://github.com/mongodb/mongo/blob/master/debian/mongod.upstart


I kept getting the same error when trying to start the mongo service. mongod worked, but then I need to keep one terminal window open to use mongo in another. nothing else worked for me except this:

'mongod --fork --logpath /var/log/mongodb.log'

Above command starts the mongo daemon if you don't already have it started and then you can just type 'mongo' in command line and mongo works

(from here: https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/tutorial/manage-mongodb-processes/)


I removed mongo lock file first

sudo rm /var/lib/mongodb/mongod.lock

then started the mongod using the following command

sudo mongod --fork -f /etc/mongod.conf