This clustering strategy relies on Erlang’s built-in distribution protocol by using a .hosts.erlang file (as used by the :net_adm module)

Please see http://erlang.org/doc/man/net_adm.html for more details.

You can have libcluster automatically connect nodes on startup for you by configuring the strategy like below:

An optional timeout can be specified in the config. This is the timeout that will be used in the GenServer to connect the nodes. This defaults to :infinity meaning that the connection process will only happen when the worker is started. Any integer timeout will result in the connection process being triggered. In the example below, it has been configured for 30 seconds.

config :libcluster, topologies: [

erlang_hosts_example: [
  strategy: Elixir.Cluster.Strategy.ErlangHosts,
  config: [timeout: 30_000]]]