How to start Phoenix with a node name
26 March 2025
It can be handy to start Phoenix with a node name and cookie. This is often used in distributed systems in production, but I find it handy to use in development with Livebook.
Rather than starting Phoenix with the usual mix phx.server I use:
elixir --name my_app@127.0.0.1 --cookie dev -S mix phx.server
replacing my_app with something more appropriate. I leave cookie as dev because I'm not concerned about security when running locally.
Once the server is running, I connect to it from Livebook:
- Click Runtime Settings, then Configure.
- Enter the
[email protected]and the cookie into the panel.
Once connected I can interact with the process from Livebook.