How to use Byebug with a remote process (e.g., pow)

Question

How do I connect to a remote debugging instance of Byebug (for use with Pow, etc)?

Answer 1

Joseph's answer was good but confusing in some small ways. He places the starting of the byebug server in config/environments/development.rb, when it would be better in an initializer. Additionally the exporting of the environment variable go in .powenv or .powrc. This is how I got it to work.

In your gemfile:

gem 'byebug' 

On the command line:

bundle install 

If you are using Pow, add the following to .powenv:

export BYEBUGPORT=3001 

If you are using other frameworks (e.g. just foreman), you may have to modify .env instead.

In config/initializers/byebug.rb

if Rails.env.development? and ENV['BYEBUGPORT']   require 'byebug/core'   Byebug.start_server 'localhost', ENV['BYEBUGPORT'].to_i end 

And finally on the command line:

touch tmp/restart.txt 

Once you go to your pow site, the byebug server should be started. On the command line you can now do:

[bundle exec] byebug -R localhost:3001 

Answer 2

I had to piece together information from several different sources to accomplish the above, so I thought I'd include a consolidated guide here for convenience:

• https://github.com/deivid-rodriguez/byebug/pull/29,
• https://github.com/deivid-rodriguez/byebug/pull/36,
• https://github.com/deivid-rodriguez/byebug/issues/31
• http://mines.mouldwarp.com/2012/04/pow-guard-and-rdebug-staying-in-web-app.html

Here are the steps:

1. In config/environments/development.rb, add:

   require 'byebug'  #set in your .powconfig if ENV['RUBY_DEBUG_PORT']   Byebug.start_server 'localhost', ENV['RUBY_DEBUG_PORT'].to_i else   Byebug.start_server 'localhost' end 

2. Restart Pow and visit yourapp.dev

3. Run the following:

   [bundle exec] byebug -R localhost:<port_you_defined_in_pow_config> 

You should see a successful connection to the remote instance.