Connecting to node with mix remote when using custom RELEASE_NODE name

tl;dr

If you’ve set the RELEASE_NODE in when starting your server with mix start and then want to connect to it using mix remote, you must first export the same value in RELEASE_NODE in your current shell as well.

If you do not do this you will get a message that the node is down, although you can still reach it from extern. Might look something like this:

[you@lserver bin]$ ./ldcards_web remote
Erlang/OTP 25 [erts-13.0.4] [source] [64-bit] [smp:2:2] [ds:2:2:10] [async-threads:1]

Could not contact remote node my_app@server, reason: :nodedown. Aborting...