Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost • Hacker News Board

Re: Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

#131

Post by sb8244 » Sat, May 06, 2017, 1:47 PM UTC

greg5green wrote: post #55

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.

I do this on my MacBook. If I shut the lid with it online, it comes back online to the same URL. This allows me to update my URL very infrequently.

Re: Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

#132

Post by zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC » Sat, May 06, 2017, 1:48 PM UTC

jdeb wrote: post #126

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #106

Yet another needless cost of not switching to IPv6 already ...

Even with IPv6 you might still have a firewall that you don't control.

Even with IPv6, you might get issued a work laptop that has software installed to randomly delete some of your files.

Well, yeah, of course, incompetent or malicious company IT can prevent you from being a productive developer and you may then feel the need to work around that, that is largely orthogonal to whether the world is using IPv6 or not.

Re: Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

#133

Post by scotteh » Sat, May 06, 2017, 2:11 PM UTC

sb8244 wrote: post #130

amjd wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Custom subdomains are available for non-paying users too. You just need to create a free account.

That isn't true for ngrok2. Ngrok 1 allowed for this but has been sunset.

It's absolutely possible. Admittedly I'm still running 2.1.18, but I just tested it there and it still works.

https://ngrok.com/docs#subdomain

edit: Just in case, I updated to 2.2.4 (newest) and it's still possible to use custom subdomains.

Re: Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

#134

Post by hrktb » Sat, May 06, 2017, 2:14 PM UTC

ausjke wrote: post #129

Never used it, what's the difference between ngrok and using DMZ with port-forwarding? are they the same thing? What's the technical advantage other than it is easy to use? I can port-forwarding easily on my router to expose whatever port to the public, why do I need ngrok? With a DDNS + Port-forwarding you can easily have what Ngrok provides? or am I missing something?

For me ngrok spares me all the talk with infra team to have the public port exposed and the setup of a test server just to for a mere 10 or 20 calls I need to receive from some new service I am checking.

I use it to prototype webhook entry points, and only need to receive a few call to have a quick confirmation I receive what I expected from the docs.

Once I have enough info I can start building a more solid project and jump through all the hoops to have it on a real server with a subdomain and a public facing interface and all the security needed etc. I'd just hate to go through the whole process first, only to discover the service is unusable for my purpose, or the data I receive doesn't make any sense.

Re: Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

#135

Post by 49531 » Sat, May 06, 2017, 2:15 PM UTC

I've used ngrok for a while now, and I love it. I used it just last night to test out some webrtc stuff I was doing. Was able to get friends from around the world on video chat served from localhost within seconds.

It's also super handy when building webhooks, you can use the unique URL to test out apis without having to deploy anything. I can't rave about it enough.

Re: Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

#136

Post by leesalminen » Sat, May 06, 2017, 2:18 PM UTC

I've been on the free tier for a while and have been meaning to upgrade to show support for such a great service. Seeing this post this morning reminded me. Upgraded for the year!

Re: Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

#137

Post by conqrr » Sat, May 06, 2017, 2:31 PM UTC

scotteh wrote: post #133

sb8244 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't true for ngrok2. Ngrok 1 allowed for this but has been sunset.

It's absolutely possible. Admittedly I'm still running 2.1.18, but I just tested it there and it still works. https://ngrok.com/docs#subdomain edit: Just in case, I updated to 2.2.4 (newest) and it's still possible to use custom subdomains.

This doesn't work. I just checked.

Tunnel session failed: Only paid plans may bind custom subdomains. Failed to bind the custom subdomain 'blahblahblah' for the account xxx

Re: Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

#138

Post by hamandcheese » Sat, May 06, 2017, 2:37 PM UTC

corford wrote: post #110

Lazare wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but, ngrok is cheaper, easier, faster, and provides some additional niceties that this setup doesn't. What's the advantage? (Plus, now I have a VPS to maintain...)

It's more secure, easier to audit, removes a hard dependency on ngrok, gives you a static IP that never changes and you get more flexibility (plus you can share the same box amongst all your dev team if you wanted - you'd just assign different port combos to each team member). In terms of maintenance, apt-get update && apt-get upgrade in a daily cron job is largely all you'd ever need... Agree none of that may be wor…

Using ngrok does not make it a hard dependency.

Re: Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

#139

Post by hamandcheese » Sat, May 06, 2017, 2:39 PM UTC

tjoff wrote: post #99

fredoliveira wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ngrok can not possibly be easier than port forwarding. Oh come on, of course it can. I use port forwarding myself, but ngrok literally makes testing remote webhooks as simple as running "ngrok". That's it. It's definitely what I recommend coworkers who just want a quick solution to test out 3rd party service integrations.

Um, just signing up for ngrok - 10 times more effort than port forwarding. Then you have to learn how to ngrok. And thats that's before actually figuring out what ngrok really is, how sensible it is to route data through a third party etc. etc. etc. For people without public IPs - why not just learn how to setup an SSH tunnel instead? Similar effort , save it as a script. Boom, you actually learned something useful t…

> how sensible it is to route data through a third party

Maybe don't keep sensitive data on your dev machine?

Re: Ngrok: Secure tunnels to localhost

#140

Post by icedchai » Sat, May 06, 2017, 2:48 PM UTC

dsr_ wrote: post #94

DonbunEf7 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, no. The purpose of a security team is to prevent data from being exfiltrated from the company's control. Passwords, PII, HIPPA/other-compliance-controlled stuff, source code, etc. are all at risk of being stolen at all times, which means that security is a game of constant vigilance. And since everybody has at least a bit of this data under their control, this means that everybody is involved with security. (At l…

You're both right. If the dev team needs something like ngrok, the security team has failed to provide proper tools. If the dev team goes ahead and uses ngrok without consulting the security team, the dev team has likely committed an awful security breach. The dev team and the security team need to think of each other as being on the same team, and talk to each every day about what they want and need.

Pretty sure a lot of people using this don't even have a "security team." They likely have corporate IT that takes 2 weeks to add a DNS entry. Something complex like mapping a public IP to a dev server would take an act of $DEITY.