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Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

ngrok.com

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Re: Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

#51

Post by bigbugbag »

inconshreveable wrote: post #2

Hiya there folks - I'm the creator of ngrok, happy to answer any questions

What is the point of ngrok besides being a paid for third party single point of failure and security liability ?

The website says it is for exposing a local server behind nat or firewall to the internet.

1. local server is by definition supposed not to be exposed to the internet 2. to expose a server behind a NAT there's this thing called port forwarding 3. to expose a server behind a firewall there's this thing called a DMZ or correctly configuring the firewall

There's a lot of data collection happening, the privacy policy is leading on the weak side. Is there an option to opt out of all this data collection so when comes the time to disclose, sell, give or share data I can be guaranteed my data or any data generated by my use of ngrok will not (you can't share something you don't have)?

What makes ngrok better than a free software tunnel solution I can use by myself with no third party involved ?

What about IPv6 support ?

Re: Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

#54

Post by bigbugbag »

ryall wrote: post #12
wiradikusuma wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the advantage of using ngrok if I can just add entry to my own domain, say bla.anyofmydomain.com -> 123.123.123.123?

Do you mean: "why can't I set up port forwarding on my firewall, then create a DNS record for my domain that points to my current IP, then wait for that to propagate around the internet before I can use it, then do it all again when I move from e.g. office->home or my IP changes because of my ISP"? No reason.

Man you'll be floored when you'll learn about this thing called dynamic DNS, and even better it's been around for 20 years ? more ?

Anyways my ISP has provided me with a fixed IP for about 17 years.

Re: Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

#55

Post by greg5green »

jeremejevs wrote: post #45

Nice tool, but without committing for annual billing (which I don't intend to do, not for the first year of usage) it's $10 a month. My internet connection, my mobile plan, my Photoshop & Lightroom subscription, a huge collection of music (Spotify), 3K~5K movies and TV shows (Netflix), etc., all cost approximately the same. I mean, sure, $120 a year is pocket change for somebody using Ngrok professionally, but that's…

You can use ngrok without paying, you just get weird domains like n56897as.ngrok.com (this is off the top of my head, idk how close I got to a real one). This works fine most of the time.

Re: Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

#56

Post by peterhunt »

jeremejevs wrote: post #45

Nice tool, but without committing for annual billing (which I don't intend to do, not for the first year of usage) it's $10 a month. My internet connection, my mobile plan, my Photoshop & Lightroom subscription, a huge collection of music (Spotify), 3K~5K movies and TV shows (Netflix), etc., all cost approximately the same. I mean, sure, $120 a year is pocket change for somebody using Ngrok professionally, but that's…

The amount of time spent thinking about this and setting up an alternative vs just using ngrok, when billed at your market hourly rate, is far more than $10. This shouldn't be a real issue.

Re: Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

#57

Post by greg5green »

yeldarb wrote: post #13

Happy paying ngrok user here. Love it for developing anything using webhooks and also hybrid mobile apps (I have my app pull the JS from the Dev box I'm working on via ngrok without having to rebuild the app or deploy the code anywhere). It significantly speeds up my workflow!

I almost forgot how useful it was for working with webhooks! One of those things I forget about until I've been banging my head on my desk for a couple hours.

Re: Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

#58

Post by bigbugbag »

Svenskunganka wrote: post #7
wiradikusuma wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the advantage of using ngrok if I can just add entry to my own domain, say bla.anyofmydomain.com -> 123.123.123.123?

It takes care of NAT/Firewalls, so you can sit on the airport if you wish and share something you work on locally. Even if it's your own home network, you'd have to go through the process of forwarding ports, have a static local and external IP, configure either a web server or a local proxy. I'm in no way affiliated to ngrok, I just think it's an awesome piece of software and use it regularly.

Are you sure about this being possible on airport provided networks ? My experience with airport networks is that pretty much everything is locked down and you can't set up anything from the airport.

Re: Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

#60

Post by kyboren »

PSA: if you want to provide remote access to a local service, but don't want the potentially-terrifying security implications, use Tor Authenticated Onion Services (AKA "HiddenServiceAuthorizeClient" [0]).

On a machine on the LAN, install Tor and set up an authenticated onion service, and point it to the desired endpoint. In order to access the service, clients need a manually-loaded encryption key (and Tor, of course). Without this key, nobody will be able even to discover your endpoint, let alone actually connect to it.

[0]: https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/tree/rend-spec.txt

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