Mongodb replica set status showing "RECOVERING"

Question

I have setup the replica set over 3 mongo server and imported the 5 GB data. now status of secondary server showing "RECOVERING". Could you let me know what is means for "RECOVERING" and how to solve this issue.

Status is as below

rs.status()
{
    "set" : "kutendarep",
    "date" : ISODate("2013-01-15T05:04:18Z"),
    "myState" : 3,
    "members" : [
        {
            "_id" : 0,
            "name" : "10.1.4.138:27017",
            "health" : 1,
            "state" : 3,
            "stateStr" : "RECOVERING",
            "uptime" : 86295,
            "optime" : Timestamp(1357901076000, 4),
            "optimeDate" : ISODate("2013-01-11T10:44:36Z"),
            "errmsg" : "still syncing, not yet to minValid optime 50f04941:2",
            "self" : true
        },
        {
            "_id" : 1,
            "name" : "10.1.4.21:27017",
            "health" : 1,
            "state" : 1,
            "stateStr" : "PRIMARY",
            "uptime" : 86293,
            "optime" : Timestamp(1358160135000, 18058),
            "optimeDate" : ISODate("2013-01-14T10:42:15Z"),
            "lastHeartbeat" : ISODate("2013-01-15T05:04:18Z"),
            "pingMs" : 0
        },
        {
            "_id" : 2,
            "name" : "10.1.4.88:27017",
            "health" : 1,
            "state" : 3,
            "stateStr" : "RECOVERING",
            "uptime" : 86291,
            "optime" : Timestamp(1357900674000, 10),
            "optimeDate" : ISODate("2013-01-11T10:37:54Z"),
            "lastHeartbeat" : ISODate("2013-01-15T05:04:16Z"),
            "pingMs" : 0,
            "errmsg" : "still syncing, not yet to minValid optime 50f04941:2"
        }
    ],
    "ok" : 1

Answer 1

The message on the "RECOVERING" replica set nodes means that these are still performing the initial sync. These nodes are not available for reads until they transitions to the Secondary state.

There are several steps in the initial sync.

See here for more information about the replica set synchronization process: http://docs.mongodb.org/manual/core/replica-set-sync/