How to rate limit a public live view

defmodule MyApp.RateLimit do
  @moduledoc """
  Thin wrapper around `:ets.update_counter/4` and a clean-up process to act as a fixed window rate limiter.

  Based on https://github.com/michalmuskala/plug_attack
  """

  use GenServer
  @table __MODULE__

  @doc """
  Starts the process that creates and cleans the ETS table.

  Accepts the following options:
  - `:clean_period` for how often to perform garbage collection, defaults to 10 minutes
  """
  def start_link(opts) do
    GenServer.start_link(__MODULE__, opts)
  end

  @doc "Increments count and checks if it's still within limit"
  def hit(key, scale, limit, increment \\ 1) do
    now = now()
    window = div(now, scale)
    full_key = {key, window}
    expires_at = (window + 1) * scale
    count = :ets.update_counter(@table, full_key, increment, {full_key, 0, expires_at})
    if count <= limit, do: {:allow, count}, else: {:deny, _retry_after = expires_at - now}
  end

  @impl true
  def init(opts) do
    clean_period = Keyword.get(opts, :clean_period, :timer.minutes(10))

    :ets.new(@table, [
      :named_table,
      :set,
      :public,
      {:read_concurrency, true},
      {:write_concurrency, true},
      {:decentralized_counters, true}
    ])

    schedule(clean_period)
    {:ok, %{clean_period: clean_period}}
  end

  @impl true
  def handle_info(:clean, state) do
    :ets.select_delete(@table, [{{{:_, :_}, :_, :"$1"}, [], [{:<, :"$1", {:const, now()}}]}])
    schedule(state.clean_period)
    {:noreply, state}
  end

  defp schedule(clean_period) do
    Process.send_after(self(), :clean, clean_period)
  end

  @compile inline: [now: 0]
  defp now do
    System.system_time(:millisecond)
  end
end

Start the rate-limiter, e.g. by the root supervisor

defmodule MyApp.Application do
  @moduledoc false
  use Application

  @impl true
  def start(_type, _args) do
    children = [
      # ...
      MyApp.RateLimit,
      # ...
    ]

    opts = [strategy: :one_for_one, name: MyApp.Supervisor]
    Supervisor.start_link(children, opts)
  end
end

And call it in your endpoint or a plug pipeline for the live view

Endpoint version:

defmodule MyApp.Endpoint do
  use Phoenix.Endpoint, otp_app: :my_app

  # ...

  # https://github.com/ajvondrak/remote_ip
  plug RemoteIp
  plug :rate_limit

  # ...
   
  plug MyApp.Router

  defp rate_limit(conn, _opts) do
    case MyApp.RateLimit.hit({:global, conn.remote_ip}, _scale = :timer.seconds(10), _limit = 10) do
      {:allow, _count} ->
        conn

      # https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Retry-After
      {:deny, retry_after_ms} ->
        retry_after_seconds = div(retry_after_ms, 1000)

        conn
        |> put_resp_header("retry-after", retry_after_seconds)
        |> send_resp(429, "You are too fast, and you are rate limited. Try again in #{retry_after_seconds} seconds.")
        |> halt()
    end
  end
end

Router pipeline version:

defmodule MyAppWeb.Router do
  use MyAppWeb, :router

  # ...

  pipeline :lv_rate_limit do
    # https://github.com/ajvondrak/remote_ip
    plug RemoteIp
    plug :rate_limit, "my_live"
  end

  scope "/", MyAppWeb do
    pipe_through [:browser, :lv_rate_limit]
    live "/", MyLive.Index, :index
  end

  defp rate_limit(conn, namespace) do
    case MyApp.RateLimit.hit({namespace, conn.remote_ip}, _scale = :timer.seconds(10), _limit = 10) do
      {:allow, _count} ->
        conn

      # https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Retry-After
      {:deny, retry_after_ms} ->
        retry_after_seconds = div(retry_after_ms, 1000)

        conn
        |> put_resp_header("retry-after", retry_after_seconds)
        |> send_resp(429, "You are too fast, and you are rate limited. Try again in #{retry_after_seconds} seconds.")
        |> halt()
    end
  end
end