Mongodb – Is mongodb running

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