Hooking up into running heroku phoenix application - heroku

Question

Previous night I was tinkering with Elixir running code on my both machines at home, but when I woke up, I asked myself Can I actually do the same using heroku run command?
I think theoretically it should be entirely possible if setup properly. Obviously heroku run iex --sname name executes and gives me access to shell (without functioning backspace which is irritating) but i haven't accessed my app yet.
Each time I executed the command it gave me different machine. I guess it's how Heroku achieve sandbox. I also was trying to find a way to determine address of my app's machine but haven't got any luck yet.
Can I actually connect with the dyno running the code to evaluate expressions on it like you would do iex -S mix phoenix.server locally ?

Answer 1

Unfortunately it's not possible.
To interconnect Erlang VM nodes you'd need EPMD port (4369) to be open.
Heroku doesn't allow opening custom ports so it's not possible.
In case You'd want to establish a connection between your Phoenix server and Elixir node You'd have to:
Two nodes on the same machine:
Start Phoenix using iex --name phoenix#127.0.0.1 -S mix phoenix.server
Start iex --name other_node#127.0.0.1
Establish a connection using Node.ping from other_node:
iex(other_node#127.0.0.1)1> Node.ping(:'phoenix#127.0.0.1')
(should return :pong not :pang)
Two nodes on different machines
Start Phoenix using some external address
iex --name phoenix#195.20.2.2 --cookie someword -S mix phoenix.server
Start second node
iex --name other_node#195.20.2.10 --cookie someword
Establish a connection using Node.ping from other_node:
iex(other_node#195.20.2.10)1> Node.ping(:'phoenix#195.20.2.2')
(should return :pong not :pang)
Both nodes should contact each other on the addresses they usually see each other on the network. (Full external IP when different networks, 192.168.X.X when in the same local network, 127.0.0.1 when on the same machine)
If they're on different machines they also must have set the same cookie value, because by default it takes automatically generated cookie in your home directory. You can check it out by running:
cat ~/.erlang.cookie
What's last you've got to make sure that your EPMD port 4369 is open, because Erlang VM uses it for internode data exchange.
As a sidenote if you will leave it open make sure to make your cookie as private as possible, because if someone knows it, he can have absolute power over your machine.

Answer 2

When you execute heroku run it will start a new one-off dyno which is a temporary instance that is deprovisioned when you finish the heroku run session. This dyno is not a web dyno and cannot receive inbound HTTP requests through Heroku's routing layer.
From the docs:
One-off dynos can never receive HTTP traffic, since the routers only route traffic to dynos named web.N.
https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/one-off-dynos#formation-dynos-vs-one-off-dynos
If you want your phoenix application to receive HTTP requests you will have to set it up to run on a web dyno.

Answer 3

It has been a while since you've asked the question, but someone might find this answer valuable, though.
As of 2021 Heroku allows forwarding multiple ports, which allows to remsh into a running ErlangVM node. It depends on how you deploy your application, but in general, you will need to:
Give your node a name and a cookie (i.e. --name "myapp#127.0.0.1" --cookie "secret")
Tell exactly which port a node should bind to, so you know which pot to forward (i.e. --erl "-kernel inet_dist_listen_min 9000 -kernel inet_dist_listen_max 9000")
Forward EPMD and Node ports by running heroku ps:forward 9001:4369,9000
Remsh into your node: ERL_EPMD_PORT=9001 iex --cookie "secret" --name console#127.0.0.1 --remsh "myapp#127.0.0.1"
Eventually you should start your server with something like this (if you are still using Mix tool): MIX_ENV=prod elixir --name "myapp#127.0.0.1" --cookie "secret" --erl "-kernel inet_dist_listen_min 9000 -kernel inet_dist_listen_max 9000" -S mix phx.server --no-halt
If you are using Releases, most of the setup has already been done for you by the Elixir team.
To verify that EPMD port has been forwarded correctly, try running epmd -port 9001 -names. The output should be:
epmd: up and running on port 4369 with data:
name myapp#127.0.0.1 at port 9000
You may follow my notes on how I do it for Dockerized releases (there is a bit more hustle): https://paveltyk.medium.com/elixir-remote-shell-to-a-dockerized-release-on-heroku-cc6b1196c6ad