Error cannot connect mongodb inside gatsby project

If you were excited to add you MongoDB databases in gatsby projects and was following this Build a Modern Blog with Gatsby and MongoDB tutorial you maybe got and error (like I did). Here I will show you how I manage to make it work with some configuration on the MongoDB Atlas admin.

The error

The error shows up when you run gatsby develop, after seting up the gatsby-config.js, in the source and transform node the log stops for an moment and there is:

The error says: warn MongoServerSelectionError: getaddrinfo ENOTFOUND main-shard-00-01-zxsxp.mongodb.net and on the bottom of the log error there is and Gatsby message: warn The gatsby-source-mongodb plugin has generated no Gatsby nodes. Do you need it? This could also suggest the plugin is misconfigured. Leaving aside the mockery: "Do you need it?" - yes gatsby I need it, he tells us that MAYBE there is a misconfiguration going on.

Adding some configuration

After some digging I manage to work around this issue. For that I had to look into the MongoDB Atlas admin and change some things. First I needed to add access to an default user, under the Security tab in Database Access:

Second I add an new global network access with the IP address of 0.0.0.0/0.

After that I tried to add the IP address to the gataby-config.js to the server{ adress: <IP> } but I was also greeted with the same error.

But I notice the address provided by the author of the post had an pattern <server-region>-shard-00-01-<something-obscure>.mongodb.net. With that in mind I made my way through the admin page and find something similar to that.

Under Deployment tab in Database you have a special tab called Overview that shows the regions:

So I thought "Maybe I can use this in the server address". And so I did. Changed to the primary one, added the authentication user and password that I created and It worked!! 🎉

Final gatsby config

My final gatsby-config.js file it's like below, you can now change with your MongoDB configurations and hopefully it will work too!

plugins: [
    {
        resolve: 'gatsby-source-mongodb',
        options: {
            dbName: 'portfolio',
            collection: 'latin_phrases',
            server: {
                // Here you change with YOUR address
                address: 'my-code-shard-00-01.dqustge.mongodb.net',
                port: 27017
            },
            auth: {
                // YOUR user, I used an default one, get creative xD
                user: 'default',
                password: 'MYPASSWORD'
            },
            extraParams: {
                ssl: true,
                authSource: 'admin',
                retryWrites: true
            }
        }
    }
]