Using a local MongoDB server #

Perhaps the easiest way to add a database to your app is to install MongoDB on your computer and add its connection information to Factor.

Using a local server is awesome for local development. However, note that in production you'll need to upload and install Mongo into a dedicated server environment and it can be a bit more complicated than just using something like Mongo Atlas.

Install MongoDB #

The first step is to install the MongoDB community edition on your computer.

You can install MongoDB by following these instructions (Mac, Windows or Linux).

Once you have completed the installation process, try typing mongo --version into your command line. You should get a response similar to the following:

➜ mongo --version
MongoDB shell version v4.2.7
git version: 51d9fe12b5d19720e72dcd7db0f2f17dd9a19212
allocator: system
modules: none
build environment:
    distarch: x86_64
    target_arch: x86_64

Connect in terminal #

When you run mongo, it always connects via a URL-like string. By default it is mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/.

It's possible to change the port that Mongo runs on, so it verify this you can connect in your terminal to mongo by just typing mongo:

mongo

Which should show the address of the connection.

connecting to: mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/?compressors=disabled&gssapiServiceName=mongodb

Create posts database #

Next, you'll need to make sure there is a posts database in MongoDb. This is the default database used by Factor. To create this, just type use posts in your terminal Mongo shell (created after you type mongo).

> use posts
switched to db posts

Add connection into to .env #

Now that you've created the posts database, you're all set to add your connection to Factor.

You'll just need the connection url mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/ and the db name posts

#.env
FACTOR_DB_CONNECTION="mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017/posts"

With that you should be up and running with a local MongoDB server, working and connected to Factor.

To test this, you can start Factor:

npx factor dev