Express Nodes Dedicated IP is an add-on that empowers your Heroku applications with two static, dedicated IP addresses for outbound traffic. With both IPs equal in quality and performance, you have the flexibility to balance your requests or use one as a fallback.

Whether you choose the Test plan with 10GB of bandwidth and shared static IPs, or the Unlimited plan with unlimited bandwidth and fully dedicated static IPs, your app always benefits from high-quality, fresh, and cooled-down IPs. In addition, the IPs supports HTTP and SOCKSv5 protocols, making it compatible with virtually any language or framework.

Key Features

1. Two IPs per plan: Ensure redundancy and failover.
2. High-quality IPs: Corporate level IPs - Fresh, cooled-down IPs.
3. Protocol support: HTTP and SOCKS5.

Provisioning the Add-on

To get started, add Express Nodes Dedicated IP to your Heroku application using the CLI.

For the Unlimited plan (2 dedicated static IPs, unlimited bandwidth), run:

heroku addons:create dedicatedip:unlimited --app your-app-name

For the Test plan (2 shared static IPs, 10GB bandwidth), run:

heroku addons:create dedicatedip:test --app your-app-name

After successful provisioning, this message displays:

IPs Provisioned Successfully
Created dedicatedip as DEDICATED_IP_HTTP_PROXY_1, DEDICATED_IP_HTTP_PROXY_2, DEDICATED_IP_SOCKS_PROXY_1, DEDICATED_IP_SOCKS_PROXY_2

After installing the add-on, the application is fully integrated with the add-on.

View Assigned IPs

Run this command to view the details of IPs provisioned to your app:

heroku config --app your-app-name

Test Your IP Connection

Run the following command to open an interactive bash session for your Heroku app

heroku run bash --app your-app-name

Within the bash session, run the following command to test the connection:

curl -x "$DEDICATED_IP_HTTP_PROXY_1" https://ipinfo.io

Dashboard Overview

We provide an easy to use dashboard so you can mange your services and IPs. Here’s how you can log into the dashboard:

heroku addons:open dedicatedip --app your-app-name

We use Heroku’s SSO which automatically logs you into our dashboard.

Local Setup

To ensure your development environment accurately mirrors production, replicate the Express Nodes Dedicated IP configuration locally. Environment parity enables you to test your app against our proxy service without needing to deploy every change.

Environment Setup

Express Nodes Dedicated IP adds several config variables to your Heroku app, as noted in the message shown after provisioning. These variables include:

• DEDICATED_IP_HTTP_PROXY_1
• DEDICATED_IP_SOCKS_PROXY_1
• DEDICATED_IP_HTTP_PROXY_2
• DEDICATED_IP_SOCKS_PROXY_2

You can use the Heroku Local command-line tool to set up your development environment. Heroku Local reads configuration variables from a .env file, so you should replicate the necessary variables locally. Run the following commands to append each variable to your .env file:

heroku config:get --app your-app-name DEDICATED_IP_HTTP_PROXY_1 -s >> .env
heroku config:get --app your-app-name DEDICATED_IP_SOCKS_PROXY_1 -s >> .env
heroku config:get --app your-app-name DEDICATED_IP_HTTP_PROXY_2 -s >> .env
heroku config:get --app your-app-name DEDICATED_IP_SOCKS_PROXY_2 -s >> .env

echo .env >> .gitignore

Use With Ruby

Here’s a simple example using Ruby’s built-in Net::HTTP library, no additional gems required. This snippet demonstrates how to route your outbound requests via Express Nodes Dedicated IP using the HTTP proxy.

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

require 'net/http'
require 'uri'

# Parse the proxy URL from the environment variable.
proxy_uri = URI.parse(ENV['DEDICATED_IP_HTTP_PROXY_1'])

# Create an HTTP object that uses the proxy.
http = Net::HTTP::Proxy(proxy_uri.host, proxy_uri.port, proxy_uri.user, proxy_uri.password)

# Specify the target URL.
uri = URI.parse('http://ipinfo.io/')

begin
  puts "Connecting through proxy: #{proxy_uri.host}:#{proxy_uri.port}..."

  # Send the GET request via the proxy.
  response = http.get_response(uri)

  if response.is_a?(Net::HTTPSuccess)
    puts "Connection successful!"
    puts "Your IP is: #{response.body.strip}"
  else
    puts "Error: HTTP #{response.code} - #{response.message}"
  end
rescue => e
  puts "Error occurred: #{e.class} - #{e.message}"
end

Set the appropriate environment variable, DEDICATED_IP_HTTP_PROXY_1, in your Heroku app configuration or local environment, and you’re ready to go. This minimal setup ensures that your Ruby application can reliably route its requests through our static IPs without any extra dependencies.

Use with Python

Express Nodes Dedicated IP works seamlessly with Python’s popular HTTP libraries. Here are a few examples to help you get started without any extra dependencies.

Using the Requests Library

You can specify the proxy URLs directly using a proxy dictionary:

import os
import requests

# Create a proxy dictionary using the environment variables.
proxies = {
    "http": os.getenv('DEDICATED_IP_HTTP_PROXY_1')
}

# Make a request through the proxy.
response = requests.get("http://ipinfo.io/ip", proxies=proxies)
print("Your IP is:", response.text.strip())

Alternatively, set the proxy globally so all requests automatically use it:

import os
import requests

# Set global proxy environment variables.
os.environ['http_proxy'] = os.getenv('DEDICATED_IP_HTTP_PROXY_1')

# Any subsequent requests use the defined proxies.
response = requests.get("http://ipinfo.io/ip")
print("Your IP is:", response.text.strip())

Use with PHP

Express Nodes Dedicated IP integrates with PHP using cURL. Here are examples for both HTTP and SOCKS5 proxies.

HTTP Proxy with PHP cURL

Use the following PHP code to send a request via our HTTP proxy:

<?php
function proxyRequest() {
    // Get the HTTP proxy URL from the environment variable.
    $proxy = getenv("DEDICATED_IP_HTTP_PROXY_1");

    // Initialize cURL with the target URL.
    $ch = curl_init("https://ipinfo.io/ip");
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

    // Set the proxy for the cURL request.
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROXY, $proxy);

    // Execute the request.
    $response = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);

    return $response;
}

$response = proxyRequest();
print($response);
?>

SOCKS5 Proxy with PHP cURL

Use the following PHP code to send a request via our SOCKS5 proxy:

<?php
function proxyRequest() {
    // Get the SOCKS5 proxy URL from the environment variable.
    $proxy = getenv("DEDICATED_IP_SOCKS_PROXY_1");

    // Initialize cURL with the target URL.
    $ch = curl_init("https://ipinfo.io/ip");
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

    // Set the proxy for the cURL request.
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROXY, $proxy);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_PROXYTYPE, CURLPROXY_SOCKS5);

    // Execute the request.
    $response = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);

    return $response;
}

$response = proxyRequest();
print($response);
?>

Migrating Between Plans

You can upgrade or downgrade your Express Nodes Dedicated IP plan by passing the plan name with the Heroku CLI. For example:

To upgrade to the Unlimited plan:

heroku addons:upgrade dedicatedip:unlimited --app your-app-name

To downgrade to Test plan:

heroku addons:upgrade dedicatedip:test --app your-app-name

Removing The Add-on

Run this command to remove the add-on.

heroku addons:destroy dedicatedip --app your-app-name

FAQs

Can I access external databases like MySQL or Postgres?

Yes, you can connect to external databases using the proxy.

Can I allowlist my IP elsewhere?

Absolutely, if you’re on a paid plan. Since paid plans have static IPs dedicated to you, it’s perfect for firewall allowlisting, database access, API restrictions, and more. It’s ideal to allowlist both IPs simultaneously so if there’s a need to change one IP, you’re not locked out. It’s not recommended to allowlist IPs if you’re on the Test plan.

Support

You’re covered with premium support. If you have any issues related to the service, or if you want to understand more about the IPs and services, Express Nodes’ award-winning support team is always there to help. Reach out to hello@expressnodes.com.