Is mongodb running?

Question

I have installed mongodb and the php drivers on my unix server.

My question is how can I tell if mongodb is running? Is there a simple command line query to check status? If I start it once from the shell will it keep running if I exit the shell (this doesn't seem to be the case). How can I make the mongodb connection persistent and auto start on server reboot?

I can run:

-bash-3.2$ su
Password:
[root@xxx]# cd /var/lib
[root@xxx]# ./mongodb-linux-i686-1.6.5/bin/mongod
./mongodb-linux-i686-1.6.5/bin/mongod --help for help and startup options
Wed Feb 23 08:06:54 MongoDB starting : pid=7271 port=27017 dbpath=/data/db/ 32-bit

** NOTE: when using MongoDB 32 bit, you are limited to about 2 gigabytes of data
** see http://blog.mongodb.org/post/137788967/32-bit-limitations

** WARNING: You are running in OpenVZ. This is known to be broken!!!

Wed Feb 23 08:06:54 db version v1.6.5, pdfile version 4.5
Wed Feb 23 08:06:54 git version: 0eb017e9b2828155a67c5612183337b89e12e291
Wed Feb 23 08:06:54 sys info: Linux domU-12-31-39-01-70-B4 2.6.21.7-2.fc8xen #1 SMP Fri
Feb 15 12:39:36 EST 2008 i686 BOOST_LIB_VERSION=1_37
Wed Feb 23 08:06:54 [initandlisten] waiting for connections on port 27017
Wed Feb 23 08:06:54 [websvr] web admin interface listening on port 28017

If I open a seperate shell I can then then connect to mongodb:

-bash-3.2$ cd /var/lib
-bash-3.2$ ./mongodb-linux-i686-1.6.5/bin/mongo
MongoDB shell version: 1.6.5
connecting to: test
db.foo.find()
{ "_id" : ObjectId("4d63d7d3eb95985ab19c8feb"), "a" : 1 }

However if I close the initial shell I can't connect:

-bash-3.2$ cd /var/lib
-bash-3.2$ ./mongodb-linux-i686-1.6.5/bin/mongo
MongoDB shell version: 1.6.5
connecting to: test
Wed Feb 23 08:25:10 Error: couldn't connect to server 127.0.0.1 (anon):1154
exception: connect failed

Answer 1

check with either:

   ps -edaf | grep mongo | grep -v grep  # "ps" flags may differ on your OS

or

   /etc/init.d/mongodb status     # for MongoDB version < 2.6

   /etc/init.d/mongod status      # for MongoDB version >= 2.6

or

   service mongod status

to see if mongod is running (you need to be root to do this, or prefix everything with sudo). Please note that the 'grep' command will always also show up as a separate process.

check the log file /var/log/mongo/mongo.log to see if there are any problems reported