Share a local port using localhost.run
in Tech
Create a public URL for a local service, no worries about firewall, NAT, etc..
Sometimes it is very useful to share a local port in your computer to the Internet
localhost.run
It is a free service that allow an user to share local URL as a public available URL.
For example:
$ PORT=8080 ./yourapp &
Serving on port 8080 ...
$ ssh -R 80:localhost:8080 ssh.localhost.run
Connect to http://yourproject.localhost.run or https://yourproject.localhost.run
This allows a user to access a service running in your computer on port 80
- link to the project: http://localhost.run/
How does it works
It uses the SSH protocol to forward the requests made the the public URL to the configured local port.
-R port:host:hostport
Specifies that connections to the given TCP port or Unix socket
on the remote (server) host are to be forwarded to the local
side.
This way, then doing this:
ssh localhost.run -R 80:localhost:80
Requests to this public URL will be forwarded to the given local port
To share a different local port you can change localhost:80 to localhost:4000
ssh localhost.run -R 80:localhost:4000
this way, conections will be forwarded to port 4000 on localhost
You can even allow a connection to another host on your network. Do not worry about firewall or NAT/port forwarding.
ssh localhost.run -R 80:otherhost:80
To generate a custom public URL you can use a different username on the ssh connection:
ssh somecustomname@localhost.run -R 80:localhost:4000
This way, the generated URL will be: http://somecustomname.localhost.run (if no one is using this username already)
Use Cases
Allow access to a service listening on 127.0.0.1
I think this is the default use case for this service, I usually use it to access some unpublished pages of this blog on my phone
Since the bundle exec jekyll serve command will listen on 127.0.0.1:4000
I could’n access it from my phone, even on the same network.
I can change jekyll configuration to listen on 0.0.0.0, but I still need to be in the same network. (if my phone is using mobile data it won’t work)
Testing a webhook in a local environment
When testing a webhook, it is useful to get the requests on your local machine
This can be a bit hard when working in closed networks, with private IP ranges.
With localhost.run you can create a public URL to your local development project.
Share a local file
You can also use this service to share local files over the Internet.
With the default nginx instalation you can put some files on the webserver root folder:
rafael@tyr:/var/www/html$ cat test.txt
This is a test document.
rafael@tyr:/var/www/html$ sudo service nginx start
rafael@tyr:/var/www/html$ ssh localhost.run -R 80:localhost:80
Connect to http://rafael.localhost.run or https://rafael.localhost.run
In another machine:
rafael@tyr:~$ curl https://rafael.localhost.run/test.txt
This is a test document.
Now you can access these files anywhere:
