Deploy with single file using distillery?

Background

I have an OTP Application that I now need to deploy. To achieve this, I am using distillery. My objective is to pass a self-sufficient file to the PROD machine that contains everything and doesn’t need to be extracted.

The usual route

Most people using distillery will know the usual route:

Run MIX_ENV=prod mix release
Copy the tarball in build/prod/rel/<name>/releases/<version>/<name>.tar.gz to the deploy server
Extract the tarbal
Run the code.

Objective

My objective is to eliminate step 3. I don’t want to extract anything, I just want to copy the release and run it, like a sudo executable.

–executable

According to the documentation one can also run MIX_ENV=prod mix release --executable or MIX_ENV=prod mix release --transient. This will create a pseudo executable file that doesn’t need to be extracted.

Question

However, after running the MIX_ENV=prod mix release --executable command, I usually search the file build/prod/rel/<name>/releases/<version>/<name>.run. In theory this should be the file I need to copy into my deploy server but I can’t find it anywhere.

Which file do I need to copy into the deploy server and where is it?

Solution

Try double checking what you're doing. For reference, I just tried this, and it worked fine. I'm using Elixir 1.7.4 and distillery 2.0.12.

Here's what I did:

create a new project:
```
mix new test_executable --sup
```
added distillery to mix.exs,
ran
```
mix release.init
```

ran:

env MIX_ENV=prod mix release --executable

Got this output:

==> Assembling release..
==> Building release test_executable:0.1.0 using environment prod
==> Including ERTS 10.2 from /usr/local/Cellar/erlang/21.2/lib/erlang/erts-10.2
==> Packaging release..
Release successfully built!
To start the release you have built, you can use one of the following tasks:

    # start a shell, like 'iex -S mix'
    > _build/prod/rel/test_executable/bin/test_executable.run console

    # start in the foreground, like 'mix run --no-halt'
    > _build/prod/rel/test_executable/bin/test_executable.run foreground

    # start in the background, must be stopped with the 'stop' command
    > _build/prod/rel/test_executable/bin/test_executable.run start

If you started a release elsewhere, and wish to connect to it:

    # connects a local shell to the running node
    > _build/prod/rel/test_executable/bin/test_executable.run remote_console

    # connects directly to the running node's console
    > _build/prod/rel/test_executable/bin/test_executable.run attach

For a complete listing of commands and their use:

    > _build/prod/rel/test_executable/bin/test_executable.run help

I can now copy the file elsewhere and run it:

cp _build/prod/rel/test_executable/bin/test_executable.run /tmp
cd /tmp
./test_executable.run console
Erlang/OTP 21 [erts-10.2] [source] [64-bit] [smp:12:12] [ds:12:12:10] [async-threads:1] [hipe] [dtrace]

Interactive Elixir (1.7.4) - press Ctrl+C to exit (type h() ENTER for help)
iex(test_executable@127.0.0.1)1>