Connecting to MongoDB from remote server via Mongoose (nodejs)

Question

I have a droplet in Digital Ocean that is running MongoDB (4.0.3) and Ubuntu (18.04). I created this with their one-click formation. I followed the digital ocean tutorials to secure mongodb and to configure remote access . Everything works great if I ssh into the box and use the mongo shell. However, I am having trouble establishing a connection to the server from my laptop via nodejs/mongoose.

Can you help me figure out what is incorrect with my configuration? Or help me interpret the error messages

Here is what is working:

1. [terminal] - ssh into the box and use mongo shell
2. [node] - using tunnel-ssh I can establish a connection to the remote server
3. [node] - using the npm mongodb package I can create a connection to the database

However, I am unable to make a connection with mongoose using tunnel-ssh . Here is the code I am trying:

const mongoose = require('mongoose')
const tunnel = require('tunnel-ssh');

const config = {
    username: 'user',
    password: 'pass',
    host: 'myLaptopIp',
    port: 22,

    dstHost: 'severRunningMongo',
    dstPort: 27017,     // this was open via `sudo ufw allow from myLaptopIp to any port 27017`

    localHost: '127.0.0.1',
    localPort: 27017
};

tunnel(config, (error, server) => {
  if (error) {
      console.log('SSH connection error: ' + error);
  }

  const url = 'mongodb://${dbuser}:${dbpass}@127.0.0.1:27017/${dbname}';
  mongoose.connect(url, { useNewUrlParser: true });
  

  var db = mongoose.connection;
  db.on('error', console.error.bind(console, 'DB connection error:'));
  db.once('open', function() {
      console.log('DB connection successful');
  });
});

The error I am getting is

Error: connect ECONNREFUSED myLaptopIp:22
    at TCPConnectWrap.afterConnect [as oncomplete] (net.js:1137:16)
Emitted 'error' event on Server instance at:
    at Client.emit (events.js:311:20)
    at Socket.<anonymous> (/~/node_modules/ssh2/lib/client.js:294:10)
    at Socket.emit (events.js:311:20)
    at emitErrorNT (internal/streams/destroy.js:92:8)
    at emitErrorAndCloseNT (internal/streams/destroy.js:60:3)
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:84:21) {
  errno: 'ECONNREFUSED',
  code: 'ECONNREFUSED',
  syscall: 'connect',
  address: 'myLaptopIp',
  port: 22,
  level: 'client-socket'
}

If I change the localPort to 2000 OR if I change the mongo connection url to include the mongoServerIp, I get the error:

MongoNetworkError: failed to connect to server [127.0.0.1:27017] on first connect [Error: connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:27017
    at TCPConnectWrap.afterConnect [as oncomplete] (net.js:1137:16) {
  name: 'MongoNetworkError'

Answer 1

You know when you ask a question and then 1 minute later you think of something new to try, and that new thing completely works?

I think I don't need to use tunnel-ssh at all because I already opened the server to allow remote access from my laptop. This works for me

const mongoose = require('mongoose')
const url = 'mongodb://{dbUser}:{dbPass}@{mongoServerIp}:27017/{dbName}?authSource=admin';
mongoose.connect(url);
  
var db = mongoose.connection;
db.on('error', console.error.bind(console, 'DB connection error:'));
db.once('open', function() {
    console.log('DB connection successful');
  });

I did need to add the ?authSource=admin to the end of the url or it wouldn't work. I added my dbuser to the admin db as suggested in DO tutorial

I'm still not sure why the tunnel doesn't work, I would have expected it to still work?