MongoDB rc.d script fails when authentication is required

Issue

the MongoDb rc.d script relies on the mongostat tool to check whether the daemon starts up, but does not support authentication. This is the offending code inside /etc/init.d/mongod:

rh_status() {
    local p a
    # run checks to determine if the service is running or use generic status
    status -p ${pidfile} $prog

    # Grab address
    a=$(grep '^[[:space:]]*bind_ip' $configfile)
    a=$(_trim "$a")
    [ -z "$a" || "$a" = "0.0.0.0" ] && a=127.0.0.1

    # Grab port
    p=$(grep '^[[:space:]]*port' $configfile)
    p=$(_trim "$p")
    [ -z "$p" ] && p=27017

    netstat -ln | grep -q "$a:$p"
    [ $? -eq 0 ] || return 1

    echo "listening on $a:$p"

    # Check db
    mongostat -n 1 -h $a --port $p &> /dev/null
    [ $? -ne 0 ] && return 1

    echo "connection test successful"
}

The problem lies in the call to mongostat.