Question

Connect MongoDB DATABASE_URL on the App Platform

I have been trying everything to get my app to connect to the managed mongodb database. I have the client (app), server and the mongodb all configured in the same app. I have connected to the db just fine from my local machine with the certificate and everything.

In the env settings for the server, DO added one that says DATABASE_URL and the value is within ${db.DATABASE_URL} and another with ${db-mongodb.DATABASE_URL}. I pointed my server to connect with this env in the code and it seems to try to pull it out, but just won’t connect. I have trusted sources all set up.

First error I was getting was: “self signed certificate in certificate chain” Lastest error is: “All values of tls and ssl must be the same”

I have messed around and my latest attempt is like this:

${db-mongodb.DATABASE_URL}:${db-mongodb.PASSWORD}@db-mongodb.mongo.ondigitalocean.com/testing?authSource=admin&replicaSet=db-mongodb&tls=true&tlsCAFile=${db-mongodb.CA_CERT}

locally, connecting I can use the following and it connects: mongodb+srv://username:${process.env.MONGOPWD}@db-mongodb.mongo.ondigitalocean.com/testing?authSource=admin&replicaSet=db-mongodb&tls=true&tlsCAFile=${process.env.MONGOCRT}


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Bobby Iliev
Site Moderator
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July 15, 2022

Hi there,

Indeed, to fix the certificate warning, you need to pass the MongoDB CA certificate to your connection string. However you need to pass the file containing the certificate rather than the certificate itself.

One way to do solve that is by creating the file in your app’s code before initializing the MongoDB connection. For example:

fs.writeFileSync(path.resolve(__dirname, "mongodb.ca.crt"), process.env.CA_CERT)

Hope that this helps!

Best,

Bobby

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