Release Notes for MongoDB 2.4

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Patch Releases

Major New Features
Security Enhancements
Performance Improvements
Enterprise
Additional Information

March 19, 2013

MongoDB 2.4 includes enhanced geospatial support, switch to V8 JavaScript engine, security enhancements, and text search (beta) and hashed index.

Patch Releases

2.4.14 -- April 28, 2015

Init script sets process ulimit to different value compared to documentation SERVER-17780
Compute BinData length in v8 SERVER-17647
Upgrade PCRE Version from 8.30 to Latest SERVER-17252
2.4.14 Changelog.
All 2.4.14 improvements.

2.4.13 -- February 25, 2015

Enforce BSON BinData length validation SERVER-17278
Disable SSLv3 ciphers SERVER-15673
Improve BSON validation SERVER-17264
2.4.13 Changelog.
All 2.4.13 improvements.

2.4.12 -- October 16, 2014

Partially written journal last section causes recovery to fail SERVER-15111.
Explicitly zero .ns files on creation SERVER-15369.
2.4.12 Changelog.
All 2.4.12 improvements.

2.4.11 -- August 18, 2014

Fixed potential information leak: SERVER-14268.
Resolved issue were an _id with a $prefix field caused replication failure due to unvalidated insert SERVER-12209.
Addressed issue where updates to documents with text-indexed fields could lead to incorrect entries SERVER-14738.
Resolved issue where creating descending index on _id could corrupt namespace SERVER-14833.
2.4.11 Changelog.
All 2.4.11 improvements.

2.4.10 -- April 4, 2014

Performs fast file allocation on Windows when available SERVER-8480.
Start elections if more than one primary is detected SERVER-10793.
Changes to allow safe downgrading from v2.6 to v2.4 SERVER-12914, SERVER-12175.
Fixes for edge cases in index creation SERVER-12481, SERVER-12956.
2.4.10 Changelog.
All 2.4.10 improvements.

2.4.9 -- January 10, 2014

Fix for instances where mongos incorrectly reports a successful write SERVER-12146.
Make non-primary read preferences consistent with slaveOK versioning logic SERVER-11971.
Allow new sharded cluster connections to read from secondaries when primary is down SERVER-7246.
All 2.4.9 improvements.

2.4.8 -- November 1, 2013

Increase future compatibility for 2.6 authorization features SERVER-11478.
Fix dbHash cache issue for config servers SERVER-11421.
All 2.4.8 improvements.

2.4.7 -- October 21, 2013

Fixed over-aggressive caching of V8 Isolates SERVER-10596.
Removed extraneous initial count during mapReduce SERVER-9907.
Cache results of dbhash command SERVER-11021.
Fixed memory leak in aggregation SERVER-10554.
All 2.4.7 improvements.

2.4.6 -- August 20, 2013

Fix for possible loss of documents during the chunk migration process if a document in the chunk is very large SERVER-10478.
Fix for C++ client shutdown issues SERVER-8891.
Improved replication robustness in presence of high network latency SERVER-10085.
Improved Solaris support SERVER-9832, SERVER-9786, and SERVER-7080.
All 2.4.6 improvements.

2.4.5 -- July 3, 2013

Fix for CVE-2013-4650 Improperly grant user system privileges on databases other than local SERVER-9983.
Fix for CVE-2013-3969 Remotely triggered segmentation fault in Javascript engine SERVER-9878.
Fix to prevent identical background indexes from being built SERVER-9856.
Config server performance improvements SERVER-9864 and SERVER-5442.
Improved initial sync resilience to network failure SERVER-9853.
All 2.4.5 improvements.

2.4.4 -- June 4, 2013

Performance fix for Windows version SERVER-9721
Fix for config upgrade failure SERVER-9661.
Migration to Cyrus SASL library for MongoDB Enterprise SERVER-8813.
All 2.4.4 improvements.

2.4.3 -- April 23, 2013

Fix for mongo shell ignoring modified object's _id field SERVER-9385.
Fix for race condition in log rotation SERVER-4739.
Fix for copydb command with authorization in a sharded cluster SERVER-9093.
All 2.4.3 improvements.

2.4.2 -- April 17, 2013

Several V8 memory leak and performance fixes SERVER-9267 and SERVER-9230.
Fix for upgrading sharded clusters SERVER-9125.
Fix for high volume connection crash SERVER-9014.
All 2.4.2 improvements

2.4.1 -- April 17, 2013

Fix for losing index changes during initial sync SERVER-9087
All 2.4.1 improvements.

Major New Features

The following changes in MongoDB affect both standard and Enterprise editions:

Text Search

Add support for text search of content in MongoDB databases as a beta feature. See Text Indexes for more information.

Geospatial Support Enhancements

Add new 2dsphere index. The new index supports GeoJSON objects Point, LineString, and Polygon. See 2dsphere Indexes and Geospatial Queries.
Introduce operators $geometry, $geoWithin and $geoIntersects to work with the GeoJSON data.

Hashed Index

Add new hashed index to index documents using hashes of field values. When used to index a shard key, the hashed index ensures an evenly distributed shard key. See also Hashed Sharding.

Improvements to the Aggregation Framework

Improve support for geospatial queries. See the $geoWithin operator and the $geoNear pipeline stage.
Improve sort efficiency when the $sort stage immediately precedes a $limit in the pipeline.
Add new operators $millisecond and $concat and modify how $min operator processes null values.

Changes to Update Operators

Add new $setOnInsert operator for use with upsert .
Enhance functionality of the $push operator, supporting its use with the $each, the $sort, and the $slice modifiers.

Additional Limitations for Map-Reduce and `$where` Operations

The mapReduce command, group command, and the $where operator expressions cannot access certain global functions or properties, such as db, that are available in the mongo shell. See the individual command or operator for details.

Improvements to `serverStatus` Command

Provide additional metrics and customization for the serverStatus command. See db.serverStatus() and serverStatus for more information.

Security Enhancements

Introduce a role-based access control system User Privileges now use a new format for Privilege Documents.
Enforce uniqueness of the user in user privilege documents per database. Previous versions of MongoDB did not enforce this requirement, and existing databases may have duplicates.
Support encrypted connections using SSL certificates signed by a Certificate Authority. See Configure mongod and mongos for TLS/SSL.

For more information on security and risk management strategies, see MongoDB Security Practices and Procedures.

Performance Improvements

V8 JavaScript Engine

Change default JavaScript engine from SpiderMonkey to V8. The change provides improved concurrency for JavaScript operations, modernized JavaScript implementation, and the removal of non-standard SpiderMonkey features, and affects all JavaScript behavior including the commands mapReduce, group, and eval and the query operator $where.

See JavaScript Changes in MongoDB 2.4 for more information about all changes .

BSON Document Validation Enabled by Default for `mongod` and `mongorestore`

Enable basic BSON object validation for mongod and mongorestore when writing to MongoDB data files. See wireObjectCheck for details.

Index Build Enhancements

Add support for multiple concurrent index builds in the background by a single mongod instance. See building indexes in the background for more information on background index builds.
Allow the db.killOp() method to terminate a foreground index build.
Improve index validation during index creation. See Compatibility and Index Type Changes in MongoDB 2.4 for more information.

Set Parameters as Command Line Options

Provide --setParameter as a command line option for mongos and mongod. See mongod and mongos for list of available options for setParameter.

Changed Replication Behavior for Chunk Migration

By default, each document move during chunk migration in a sharded cluster propagates to at least one secondary before the balancer proceeds with its next operation. See Range Migration and Replication.

Improved Chunk Migration Queue Behavior

Increase performance for moving multiple chunks off an overloaded shard. The balancer no longer waits for the current migration's delete phase to complete before starting the next chunk migration. See Asynchronous Range Migration Cleanup for details.

Enterprise

The following changes are specific to MongoDB Enterprise Editions:

SASL Library Change

In 2.4.4, MongoDB Enterprise uses Cyrus SASL. Earlier 2.4 Enterprise versions use GNU SASL (libgsasl). To upgrade to 2.4.4 MongoDB Enterprise or greater, you must install all package dependencies related to this change, including the appropriate Cyrus SASL GSSAPI library. See Install MongoDB Enterprise for details of the dependencies.

New Modular Authentication System with Support for Kerberos

In 2.4, the MongoDB Enterprise now supports authentication via a Kerberos mechanism. See Configure MongoDB with Kerberos Authentication on Linux for more information. For drivers that provide support for Kerberos authentication to MongoDB, refer to Driver Support.