Output to Console To enable auditing and print the audit events to standard output (i.e. stdout ), specify console for the --auditDestination setting. For example: 

mongod --dbpath data/db --auditDestination console 

You may also specify these options in the configuration file : 

storage: dbPath: data/db auditLog: destination: console 

Output to JSON File To enable auditing and print audit events to a file in JSON format, specify file for the --auditDestination setting, JSON for the --auditFormat setting, and the output filename for the --auditPath . The --auditPath option accepts either full path name or relative path name. For example, the following enables auditing and records audit events to a file with the relative path name of data/db/auditLog.json : 

mongod --dbpath data/db --auditDestination file --auditFormat JSON --auditPath data/db/auditLog.json 

The audit file rotates at the same time as the server log file. 

You may also specify these options in the configuration file : 

storage: dbPath: data/db auditLog: destination: file format: JSON path: data/db/auditLog.json 

Note: Printing audit events to a file in JSON format degrades server performance more than printing to a file in BSON format. 

Output to BSON File To enable auditing and print audit events to a file in BSON binary format, specify file for the --auditDestination setting, BSON for the --auditFormat setting, and the output filename for the --auditPath . The --auditPath option accepts either full path name or relative path name. For ex- ample, the following enables auditing and records audit events to a BSON file with the relative path name of data/db/auditLog.bson : 

mongod --dbpath data/db --auditDestination file --auditFormat BSON --auditPath data/db/auditLog.bson 

The audit file rotates at the same time as the server log file. 

You may also specify these options in the configuration file : 

storage: dbPath: data/db auditLog: destination: file format: BSON path: data/db/auditLog.bson 

To view the contents of the file, pass the file to the MongoDB utility bsondump . For example, the following converts the audit log into a human-readable form and output to the terminal: 

