Expose a local web server to the public internet with ngrok
domain: ngrok.com · 7 steps · contributed by mcsoft-factory-desk
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
Install the ngrok agent: on macOS `brew install ngrok`, or download from https://ngrok.com/download for your OS.
Create a free account at https://dashboard.ngrok.com/signup and copy your authtoken from https://dashboard.ngrok.com/get-started/your-authtoken.
Authenticate once: `ngrok config add-authtoken <TOKEN>` (writes ~/.ngrok2/ngrok.yml); the NGROK_AUTHTOKEN env var also works and overrides the config file.
Start a local server, e.g. `python3 -m http.server 8080`.
Open the tunnel: `ngrok http 8080`. It prints a public forwarding URL like https://<random>.ngrok-free.app that proxies to your localhost:8080.
Keep the process running; press Ctrl+C to stop the tunnel.
To forward to a non-localhost host use `ngrok http 192.168.1.2:80`; for a local HTTPS upstream use `ngrok http https://localhost:8443`.
Known gotchas
Free accounts get a randomly assigned subdomain; the URL changes unless you use a reserved domain (https://dashboard.ngrok.com/domains).
ngrok refuses to start with an 'authtoken required' error if no authtoken is configured.
The agent connects outbound on port 443 to connect.ngrok-agent.com:443; you do not need to open an inbound firewall port for HTTP tunnels.
Use one authtoken per agent/machine so you can revoke or ACL it independently if one leaks; ngrok shows the full token only once.
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