Installing MongoDB

Before you can run any MongoDB commands you need to install the MongoDB Community Server and the mongosh shell on your local machine. This lesson walks through installation on macOS and Ubuntu Linux.

Installing on macOS with Homebrew

Homebrew is the easiest way to install MongoDB on a Mac.

# Add the MongoDB tap
brew tap mongodb/brew

# Install the latest MongoDB Community Server
brew install mongodb-community

# Start MongoDB as a background service
brew services start mongodb-community

To verify the server is running:

brew services list | grep mongodb

Installing on Ubuntu / Debian

# Import the MongoDB public GPG key
curl -fsSL https://www.mongodb.org/static/pgp/server-7.0.asc |   sudo gpg -o /usr/share/keyrings/mongodb-server-7.0.gpg --dearmor

# Add the MongoDB repository
echo "deb [ arch=amd64,arm64 signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/mongodb-server-7.0.gpg ]   https://repo.mongodb.org/apt/ubuntu jammy/mongodb-org/7.0 multiverse" |   sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongodb-org-7.0.list

# Install
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y mongodb-org

# Start and enable the service
sudo systemctl start mongod
sudo systemctl enable mongod

Installing mongosh

mongosh is the modern MongoDB shell that replaces the legacy mongo shell.

# macOS
brew install mongosh

# Verify installation
mongosh --version

On Linux, mongosh is included in the mongodb-mongosh package, which is installed automatically with the steps above.

Connecting to Your Local Server

Once the server is running, open mongosh:

mongosh

You will see a prompt like test>. The default database is test. You can switch databases with the use command:

use myapp

Using MongoDB Atlas (Cloud)

If you prefer not to install locally, MongoDB Atlas offers a free M0 cluster in the cloud. Sign up at cloud.mongodb.com, create a free cluster, whitelist your IP, create a database user, and copy the connection string. Then connect with mongosh:

mongosh "mongodb+srv://cluster0.example.mongodb.net/myapp"   --username myuser

Checking the Server Status

Inside mongosh you can verify the server is healthy:

db.adminCommand({ serverStatus: 1 })

With MongoDB installed and running, you are ready to start inserting documents in the next lesson.