Step-by-Step Guide to Deploying Phoenix Applications Using Mix Releases

This article, authored by Konrad Sowik, details how to package and deploy a Phoenix application using mix releases. The author begins by discussing the transition from using the Distillery library, which was common before Elixir version 1.9, to using mix releases, which has most of Distillery's functionalities merged into Mix itself. Then, the article provides a step-by-step walkthrough on setting up mix release configurations, building the release, and handling runtime configurations using config/runtime.exs. It also touches upon necessary environment variables like DATABASE_URL and SECRET_KEY_BASE. Furthermore, the guide suggests steps for deploying the release locally and hints at automating the process for remote deployments. This article concludes with tips on using commands like mix phx.gen.release and includes a mention of Docker for containerization, explicitly explaining how one can simplify the deployment process of an Elixir app with Mix Releases.