ngrok - Introspected tunnels to localhost (homepage)
"I want to securely expose a web server to the internet and capture all traffic for detailed inspection and replay"
What is ngrok?
ngrok is a reverse proxy that creates a secure tunnel between from a public endpoint to a locally running web service. ngrok captures and analyzes all traffic over the tunnel for later inspection and replay.
What can I do with ngrok?
- Expose any http service behind a NAT or firewall to the internet on a subdomain of ngrok.com
- Expose any tcp service behind a NAT or firewall to the internet on a random port of ngrok.com
- Inspect all http requests/responses that are transmitted over the tunnel
- Replay any request that was transmitted over the tunnel
What is ngrok useful for?
- Temporarily sharing a website that is only running on your development machine
- Demoing an app at a hackathon without deploying
- Developing any services which consume webhooks (HTTP callbacks) by allowing you to replay those requests
- Debugging and understanding any web service by inspecting the HTTP traffic
- Running networked services on machines that are firewalled off from the internet
Downloading and installing ngrok
ngrok has no runtime dependencies. Just download a single binary for your platform and run it. Some premium features are only available by creating an account on ngrok.com. If you need them, create an account on ngrok.com.