How to fix MongoDB 'exception in initAndListen: IllegalOperation: Attempted to create a lock file on a read-only directory: /var/lib/mongodb, terminating'

Problem:

When trying to start MongoDB e.g. using sudo systemctl start mongod, the process terminates with status code 100 and you see this error message in /var/log/mongodb/mongodb.log:

2019-07-22T17:11:07.858+0200 I STORAGE  [initandlisten] exception in initAndListen: IllegalOperation: Attempted to create a lock file on a read-only directory: /var/lib/mongodb, terminating

Solution

Fix the permissions of /var/lib/mongodb:

sudo chown -R mongodb: /var/lib/mongodb

then restart MongoDB e.g. using

sudo systemctl restart mongod

In case that does not help, check your error message if you are using a data directory different to /var/lib/mongodb. In that case run

sudo chown -R mongodb: <insert your data directory here>

In case that is not the case or doesn’t help either, check if your filesystem is mounted in read-only mode.