This guide will walk you through setting up the project, configuring MongoDB locally, and testing the connection.

• Windows: Download and install MongoDB Community Edition from MongoDB Download Center. (I have not used windows since 2017 so this part could use some expansion if there is more to it than this.)
• Mac (Homebrew):

  brew tap mongodb/brew
  brew install mongodb-community

• Linux (Ubuntu/Debian):

  sudo apt update
  sudo apt install -y mongodb

• Linux (Arch):

  yay -S mongodb-bin
  

MongoDB stores its data in /data/db by default. Create the directory if it does not exist:

sudo mkdir -p /data/db

To run MongoDB locally:

mongod --dbpath /data/db --auth

If MongoDB is running correctly, you should see a message saying Waiting for connections or it will just output log information to stdout.

mongosh

(If mongosh does not work, try mongo instead.)

use admin

db.createUser({
  user: "adminUser",
  pwd: "adminPassword",
  roles: [{ role: "root", db: "admin" }]
})

Replace adminPassword with a strong password.

If MongoDB was running, stop it (Ctrl+C) and restart it:

mongod --auth --dbpath /data/db

mongosh -u "adminUser" -p "adminPassword" --authenticationDatabase "admin"

use toDo

db.createUser({
  user: "yourName",
  pwd: "yourSecurePassword",
  roles: [{ role: "readWrite", db: "toDo" }]
})

Replace'yourName' and yourSecurePassword with your name and a strong password.

mongodb://yourName:yourSecurePassword@localhost:27017/ToDo?authSource=ToDo

node -e "console.log(require('crypto').randomBytes(32).toString('hex'))"

Create a .env file inside the server/ directory and add the above like so:

MONGO_URI=mongodb://yourName:yourSecurePassword@localhost:27017/ToDo?authSource=ToDo
JWT_SECRET=a7c99f0c9e6d46f9e0f2b4f5b5e21f98de4e69c7d0b6a3ef40b109c6a6de6a8e
PORT=5000

Ensure that your .env file is in your .gitignore

.env

To verify that MongoDB is running and accessible:

mongosh -u "yourName" -p "yourSecurePassword" --authenticationDatabase "toDo"

If it connects successfully, run:

db.stats()

If it fails to connect, ensure you are using 'yourName' and 'yourSecurePassword' instead of 'adminUser' and 'adminPassword'

Run the backend:

cd server
node server.js

Then, open a browser and go to:

http://localhost:5000/

Expected output:

API is running...

node server/database/seed.js

cd server
node server.js

cd client
npm install
npm run dev

You have successfully:

• set up MongoDB.
• Created an admin user.
• Configured environment variables.
• Tested connecting to the db.