Single Instance Mongodb Replica Set - cannot perform query/insert operations

Question

After installing mongodb, I ran mongod with

mongod --dbpath <pathtodb> --logpath <pathtolog> --replSet rs0

I then connected with the mongo shell and ran

rs.initiate()

I then tried to insert a document into a collection, but received an error:

> db.blah.insert({a:1})
WriteResult({ "writeError" : { "code" : undefined, "errmsg" : "not master" } })

Looking at rs.status(), I see the status is REMOVED:

> rs.status()
{
        "state" : 10,
        "stateStr" : "REMOVED",
        "uptime" : 1041,
        "optime" : Timestamp(1429037007, 1),
        "optimeDate" : ISODate("2015-04-14T18:43:27Z"),
        "ok" : 0,
        "errmsg" : "Our replica set config is invalid or we are not a member of it",
        "code" : 93
}

I have no idea what I could have done to mess this up. This should have worked I think. How do I get past this?

Answer 1

Problem here is that you ran rs.initiate().. As EMPTY! You didn't tell what machines belongs to that replica set.

So..

rs.initiate({
      _id: "rs0",
      version: 1,
      members: [
         { _id: 0, host : "address.to.this.machine:27017" }
      ]
   }
)