Database Setup

Introduction

ZapStart uses MongoDB for data storage. MongoDB is a document database that makes it easy to store, query, and index your application data. In this guide, we'll set up MongoDB Atlas, a fully-managed cloud database service.

Setting Up MongoDB Atlas

Let's create a MongoDB Atlas account and project:

1. Go to MongoDB Atlas and create an account (or sign in)
2. Choose the free tier, region could be N. Virginia (us-east-1) or any other region.
3. Create a user database and save the username and password somewhere safe.
4. Click on connect or choose a connection method, choose Drivers and then Node.js
5. Copy the connection string to your .env file MONGODB_URI=, it would look something like this:
   mongodb+srv://username:password@cluster0.xxxxx.mongodb.net/?retryWrites=true&w=majority

6. Replace the username and password with your database user's username and password.

Configure Network Access

1. Go to Network Access in the left menu
2. Click Add IP Address
3. For development, select Allow Access from Anywhere (0.0.0.0/0), this allows you to connect to the database from your local computer or from production servers.
4. Click Confirm

Changing the Database Name

By default, MongoDB will use a database named "test". You should change this to a name that reflects your application.

To do this, modify the URI to include your database name before the query parameters:

mongodb+srv://username:password@cluster0.xxxxx.mongodb.net/?retryWrites=true&w=majority

Notice how we added /my-awesome-saas before the ? in the URI. This tells MongoDB to use a database named "my-awesome-saas".