Add Procfileλ︎
The Procfile is a simple text file that instructs Heroku how to build and run an application.
Using the web: directive, we tell Heroku that our application will listen for web traffic (https). Heroku sets a value for the port our application can listen to using the PORT configuration variable (ports are dynamically assigned).
Create a new file called Procfile with the following text
Hint::Get webserver PORT from Herokuλ︎
Heroku dynamically assigns a port number for each
web:application deployed. The Heroku port is set in the PORT environment variable within Heroku each time the application is deployed."$PORT" should be an argument to any service that runs a web server (Jetty, HTTPkit server) or the value should be obtained from the Heroku environment from the Clojure code.
Theory: Running Clojure as a Java applicationλ︎
When you run a Clojure project with Leiningen, two Java virtual machines (JVM's) are started. One JVM is to run Leiningen and the second JVM is to run your application. By using Leiningen to run your application in production you are using use extra resources and also risk pulling in unnecessary development libraries & configuration only needed during development.
When you run your application in production you can save resources by only running a JVM for your application. This is done by running a Clojure application just like a Java application, using the java command in the Heroku Procfile.
Theory: Building Clojureλ︎
Building a Clojure project with Leiningen generates a Java jar file, a packaged version of your application. A jar file generated from Java can be run using java -jar jar-file-name.jar. However to run your Clojure jar file as a Java application you also need to include the the Clojure core library.
Leiningen can also generate an Uberjar. The uberjar is a jar file that also includes the Clojure library as well as your application and libraries. As the uberjar contains Clojure, you can run an uberjar in any Java environment.
By adding an :uberjar entry to the project.clj then the Leiningen command lein uberjar is run during the build and an uberjar is created.
When deploying on Heroku your application is built from your codebase using Leiningen, pulling in all the libraries your application depends on. When your application is run it is done so as a Java application using only the uberjar, starting just the one JVM.
Further reading: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/clojure-support
Theory: Identifying an entry point for your applicationλ︎
If your main namespace doesn’t have a :gen-class then you can use clojure.main as your entry point and indicate your app’s main namespace using the -m argument in your Procfile: