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MongoDB Setup

Published on December 23, 2021

The purpose of this guide is to quickly set up a local copy of MongoDB on Windows for local development purposes. Authentication will not be enabled or covered in this tutorial.

Installation and config​

  1. Install MongoDB Community Edition, the standard configuration is fine.
  2. Take note of where your installation's bin folder is at, it should be at C:\Program Files\MongoDB\Server\4.2\bin by default.
  3. Add it to your environment variables. See guide here.
  4. Open your terminal - if you already have it opened, exit and re-open it to reload the enviroment variables.
  5. Enter mongo to access MongoDB.

Create a new collection​

  1. Next, create a new collection, use the use command:
# To display the database you are using
db

# To switch databases use `use <database>`
# To create a new database, switch to a non-existing database
use dev

# Template
use <database>
tip

Read https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/mongo/ for more information.

Create a new user​

  1. Next, create a user with readWrite and dbAdmin roles, using the db.createUser() command:
# Switch to the database you want to add the user to
use dev

# Create the user with `readWrite` and `dbAdmin` rights
db.createUser(
  {
    user: "devadmin",
    pwd: passwordPrompt(),
    roles: [ "readWrite", "dbAdmin" ]
  }
)

# Template
db.createUser(
  {
    user: <username>,
    pwd: <password>,
    roles: [ "readWrite", "dbAdmin" ]
  }
)
tip

Read https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/reference/method/db.createUser/ for more information.

connection-string format​

The connection-string is used to access the MongoDB instance from your applications (i.e. MongooseJS). The format of your connection-string is as follows:

mongodb://[username:password@]host1[:port1][,...hostN[:portN]][/[database][?options]]
# Parts in [ and ] are optional

# Example, without authentication
mongodb://localhost:27017/dev

# Example, with authentication
mongodb://devadmin:<password>@localhost:27017/dev
# Replace the <password> with your actual password
caution

If the username or password includes the at sign @, colon :, slash /, or the percent sign % character, use percent encoding. See https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/reference/connection-string/#examples for more information.

Authentication​

Given that we are not enabling authentication, you can use either of the above connection-string URI formats.

tip

Read https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/tutorial/enable-authentication/ for more information.

Verify connection-string​

To verify your connection-string, simply use mongo <mongoURI>:

# Example, without authentication
mongo mongodb://localhost:27017/dev

# Example, with authentication
mongo mongodb://devadmin:<password>@localhost:27017/dev

Resources​