TLS/SSL and PyMongo¶

PyMongo supports connecting to MongoDB over TLS/SSL. This guide covers the configuration options supported by PyMongo. See the server documentation to configure MongoDB.

Dependencies¶

For connections using TLS/SSL, PyMongo may require third party dependencies as determined by your version of Python. With PyMongo 3.3+, you can install PyMongo 3.3+ and any TLS/SSL-related dependencies using the following pip command:

$ python -m pip install pymongo[tls]

Earlier versions of PyMongo require you to manually install the dependencies listed below.

Python 2.x¶

The ipaddress module is required on all platforms.

When using CPython < 2.7.9 or PyPy < 2.5.1:

On Windows, the wincertstore module is required.
On all other platforms, the certifi module is required.

Python 3.x¶

On Windows, the wincertstore module is required when using PyPy3 < 3.5.

Warning

Industry best practices, and some regulations, require the use of TLS 1.1 or newer. Though no application changes are required for PyMongo to make use of the newest protocols, some operating systems or versions may not provide an OpenSSL version new enough to support them.

Users of macOS older than 10.13 (High Sierra) will need to install Python from python.org, homebrew, macports, or another similar source.

Users of Linux or other non-macOS Unix can check their OpenSSL version like this:

$ openssl version

If the version number is less than 1.0.1 support for TLS 1.1 or newer is not available. Contact your operating system vendor for a solution or upgrade to a newer distribution.

You can check your Python interpreter by installing the requests module and executing the following command:

python -c "import requests; print(requests.get('https://www.howsmyssl.com/a/check', verify=False).json()['tls_version'])"

You should see “TLS 1.X” where X is >= 1.

You can read more about TLS versions and their security implications here:

https://www.owasp.org/index.php/Transport_Layer_Protection_Cheat_Sheet#Rule_-_Only_Support_Strong_Protocols

Basic configuration¶

In many cases connecting to MongoDB over TLS/SSL requires nothing more than passing ssl=True as a keyword argument to MongoClient:

>>> client = pymongo.MongoClient('example.com', ssl=True)

Or passing ssl=true in the URI:

>>> client = pymongo.MongoClient('mongodb://example.com/?ssl=true')

This configures PyMongo to connect to the server using TLS, verify the server’s certificate and verify that the host you are attempting to connect to is listed by that certificate.

Certificate verification policy¶

By default, PyMongo is configured to require a certificate from the server when TLS is enabled. This is configurable using the ssl_cert_reqs option. To disable this requirement pass ssl.CERT_NONE as a keyword parameter:

>>> import ssl
>>> client = pymongo.MongoClient('example.com',
...                              ssl=True,
...                              ssl_cert_reqs=ssl.CERT_NONE)

Or, in the URI:

>>> uri = 'mongodb://example.com/?ssl=true&ssl_cert_reqs=CERT_NONE'
>>> client = pymongo.MongoClient(uri)

Specifying a CA file¶

In some cases you may want to configure PyMongo to use a specific set of CA certificates. This is most often the case when using “self-signed” server certificates. The ssl_ca_certs option takes a path to a CA file. It can be passed as a keyword argument:

>>> client = pymongo.MongoClient('example.com',
...                              ssl=True,
...                              ssl_ca_certs='/path/to/ca.pem')

Or, in the URI:

>>> uri = 'mongodb://example.com/?ssl=true&ssl_ca_certs=/path/to/ca.pem'
>>> client = pymongo.MongoClient(uri)

Specifying a certificate revocation list¶

Python 2.7.9+ (pypy 2.5.1+) and 3.4+ provide support for certificate revocation lists. The ssl_crlfile option takes a path to a CRL file. It can be passed as a keyword argument:

>>> client = pymongo.MongoClient('example.com',
...                              ssl=True,
...                              ssl_crlfile='/path/to/crl.pem')

Or, in the URI:

>>> uri = 'mongodb://example.com/?ssl=true&ssl_crlfile=/path/to/crl.pem'
>>> client = pymongo.MongoClient(uri)

Client certificates¶

PyMongo can be configured to present a client certificate using the ssl_certfile option:

>>> client = pymongo.MongoClient('example.com',
...                              ssl=True,
...                              ssl_certfile='/path/to/client.pem')

If the private key for the client certificate is stored in a separate file use the ssl_keyfile option:

>>> client = pymongo.MongoClient('example.com',
...                              ssl=True,
...                              ssl_certfile='/path/to/client.pem',
...                              ssl_keyfile='/path/to/key.pem')

Python 2.7.9+ (pypy 2.5.1+) and 3.3+ support providing a password or passphrase to decrypt encrypted private keys. Use the ssl_pem_passphrase option:

>>> client = pymongo.MongoClient('example.com',
...                              ssl=True,
...                              ssl_certfile='/path/to/client.pem',
...                              ssl_keyfile='/path/to/key.pem',
...                              ssl_pem_passphrase=<passphrase>)

These options can also be passed as part of the MongoDB URI.