Here is the sequence of command in Mongo database using mogo shell. I am running this on mongo-dev1 server ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [rsharma@mongo-dev01 data] $ mongod -version db version v2.2.1-rc1, pdfile version 4.5 Wed Jul 17 11:02:17 git version: 9495696aa169fb34a85eafcb58b64d2ca5e74f25 [rsharma@mongo-dev01 data] $ mongo -u monadmin -p XXXXXXXX admin MongoDB shell version: 2.2.1-rc1 connecting to: admin replicadev01:PRIMARY> use admin switched to db admin replicadev01:PRIMARY> db.auth('monadmin','XXXXXXXXXX') 1 replicadev01:PRIMARY> db.copyDatabase( "mongo-dev", "fdr-dev", "ny-vmmongo-d01" ) { "errmsg" : "", "ok" : 0 } replicadev01:PRIMARY> The database is running with following options and I am executing the command on primary(master). The source database on "ny-vmmongo-d01" doesn't have authentication enabled. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- logpath=/var/log/mongo/mongod.log logappend=true fork = true cpu = true directoryperdb=true dbpath=/data/mongodb oplogSize = 31440 replSet = replicadev01 journal = true auth = true keyFile = /var/lib/mongo/key Copy database command is not working. In log file the following error is showing up. replauthenticate: can't authenticate to master server, user:__system As you can see in the command list, I have already authenticated myself with admin database super user which has write access. Here is few useful output from mongo shells. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ replicadev01:PRIMARY> rs.status() { "set" : "replicadev01", "date" : ISODate("2013-07-17T15:12:59Z"), "myState" : 1, "members" : [ { "_id" : 0, "name" : "mongo-dev01:27017", "health" : 1, "state" : 1, "stateStr" : "PRIMARY", "uptime" : 775690, "optime" : Timestamp(1374073846000, 1), "optimeDate" : ISODate("2013-07-17T15:10:46Z"), "self" : true } , { "_id" : 1, "name" : "mongo-dqh01:27017", "health" : 1, "state" : 2, "stateStr" : "SECONDARY", "uptime" : 775559, "optime" : Timestamp(1374070109000, 1), "optimeDate" : ISODate("2013-07-17T14:08:29Z"), "lastHeartbeat" : ISODate("2013-07-17T15:12:59Z"), "pingMs" : 0 } ], "ok" : 1 } replicadev01:PRIMARY> db.system.users.find().pretty() { "_id" : ObjectId("50047ae6933b4c13dbcf5da3"), "user" : "monadmin", "readOnly" : false, "pwd" : "714ab78bfee64a37df05f0d0885a83c3" } { "_id" : ObjectId("517688344b63850b58594aa4"), "user" : "dtsai", "readOnly" : false, "pwd" : "82863cecc9aee8f5789ec31171aec0e6" } { "_id" : ObjectId("51c3552e8672a51ea8e53867"), "user" : "reporter", "readOnly" : true, "pwd" : "ab018b5a20f2387f4bf4fbab440d0d5d" } replauthenticate: can't authenticate to master server, user:__system