Mongodb – Upgrade Single Config Server to Replica Set

You can start a single node replica set by starting the mongod with the replSet argument/config option, that is all that is required. It takes a name argument, which will then function as the name of the replica set in question. Once you have done that, you simply run rs.initiate() from the shell when connected to the node (this is only needed once).

This is described in detail here:

http://docs.mongodb.org/manual/tutorial/convert-standalone-to-replica-set/

To stay with just a single node, simply do not follow the "Expanding the set" instructions.

Just add the new secondary with auth enabled and using identical keyfiles from the start. If you do that, they will connect, use the keyfile to authenticate, and then sync from scratch - there is no reason to change the original members of the set, just make sure that the new ones you add have the correct (identical) keyfile as the original members.

The other thing to make sure of is that the user you are authenticated as has the correct permissions to do the additions (since turning off auth would solve that issue also). For reference, the built in role with the relevant permissions is clusterManager for 2.6+ - clusterAdmin should also work, and has the advantage of existing in 2.4.

Per the comments discussion, the caveat with clusterAdmin in 2.4 is that although you have permission to run the relevant commands, you will need to have read privileges on the local database (per the Combined Access section of the 2.4 docs) to use the rs.conf() command. It's not strictly required but without it you will have to construct the entire config document from scratch for a reconfiguration command which is certainly inconvenient.