How to Connect to mLab

mLab is the leading Database-as-a-Service for MongoDB, powering over half a million deployments worldwide. Trusted by companies such as Lyft, Facebook, and Whole Foods. Studio 3T is a graphical user interface and IDE for MongoDB. Among other things, it allows you to explore your data in a more intuitive way and simplifies complex queries through its query tools.

In this post you will learn

how to setup a cluster with mLab
how to connect your mLab database to Studio 3T
where to go to learn more about working with Studio 3T

Take a look at our overview page for other ways to connect.

Set up a Cloud Cluster

This section will guide you through setting up a free Sandbox. A free Sandbox deployment which offers a single node with 500 MB of storage.

Click on Create New in the MongoDB Deployments section of your home screen.
Select a cloud provider and the free Sandbox plan type. Then click on the Continue button.
Select the region that is closest to you. Then click on the Continue button. Note: For production environments your application and your database should be co-located.
Enter a name for your database. Then click on the Continue button.

After reviewing your selections click on Submit Order.

Obtain the Connection URI

On your mLab home screen, click on the database you want to connect to (if you have a cluster, you will have to first click on the cluster, and then select the database). At the top of the screen of your database you will see a URI of the form:

mongodb://<dbuser>:<dbpassword>@ds012345.mlab.com:12345/database-name or mongodb://<dbuser>:<dbpassword>@ds012345-a0.mlab.com:12345,ds112345-a1.mlab.com:12345/<dbname>?replicaSet=rs-ds112345.

You need a username and password to replace the placeholders <dbuser> and <dbpassword> within this the string.

To create a user, click on the ‘Users’ tab and click the ‘Add database user’ button. Do not select the ‘Make read-only’ option as you need a user that can write to the database.

Connect to Studio 3T

If you haven’t yet, go ahead and download Studio 3T and install it. You will need the connection URI string from your database in the following steps. It should be of the form:

mongodb://<dbuser>:<dbpassword>@ds012345.mlab.com:12345/database-name

Inside Studio 3T, click on Connect in the top left corner of the toolbar.
Inside the Connection Manager that opens up, click on New Connection in the top left corner of the toolbar.
Inside the new connection window that opens, give your connection a name. Then click on From URI… in the bottom of the window.
Paste your connection URI (ensure you replace the placeholders with your username and password) and click on Ok.
To confirm Studio 3T extracted everything correctly, you can verify the information in the Server, Authentication, and SSL tabs. Once you are satisfied click Save.
Lastly, select the connection you just created and connect to it.

Copy the uri from mLab and paste it directly into Studio 3T's connection manager

Exploring Studio 3T

Now that you are all set up, let’s insert an example dataset:

Either Copy the dataset into your clipboard or save it as a file.
Inside Studio 3T, select your database and click on Import and import the JSON dataset either from your clipboard or by selecting the file you saved. If you copied the data from your clipboard be sure to add pokemon as the name of your collection.
Click on Next twice and then on Start Import.

Screencast of a user importing a dataset into a database in Studio 3T. The user starts on the Studio 3T application with a database called test-database connected. The user selects this database and then clicks on the insert button in the top menu. A new window opens up that allows the user to select the format of the data that is to be imported. JSON is preselected so the user clicks next. On the next screen, the user then clicks the plus icon in the top left corner. Then the user chooses the file pokemon.json and clicks on open. The user clicks on next twice and then on start import. Now the user is back to the normal screen and clicks on the database and then double-clicks the pokemon collection. A new UI opens that shows the collection's documents and provides tooling to interact with the documents.

You now have a sample dataset and you’ll find your new collection located on the left-hand side within the Connection Pane. Double-click your new collection and you’ll see the Collection Tab open up with all your collection’s documents. From here you can use the UI to add, edit, view, and delete documents. You also have access to the Visual Query Builder from here.