How to Run Elixir in Cloud9's IDE

Cloud9 is a great web-based development platform. If you don’t have access to a dedicated machine you can set up for development, or if you just prefer to keep all your coding in neat, tiny VMs, Cloud9 could be just what you’re looking for. It’s particularly good for students learning to code.

Cloud9 doesn’t provide an Elixir-specific workspace template, so you have to configure one yourself. Here’s how to do that:

1. Create a Cloud9 account. If you already have a Github account, just log in with that.
2. Click “Create a new workspace”.
3. Give it a name, say, “Elixir”.
4. Select the “Custom” template.
5. When the workspace loads, run the following commands in the console:

# For some reason, installing Elixir tries to remove this file
# and if it doesn't exist, Elixir won't install. So, we create it.
sudo touch /etc/init.d/couchdb

# Standard Ubuntu Elixir installation instructions
wget https://packages.erlang-solutions.com/erlang-solutions_1.0_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i erlang-solutions_1.0_all.deb
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install elixir

With that, you’re ready to code! iex, elixir, and mix should all be available, and Cloud9 has syntax coloring for Elixir code as well. Happy coding!