To get the dependencies if you don’t have them, type:
sudo apt-get install ruby ruby1.8-dev rubygems1.8 libopenssl-ruby
Now you can install localtunnel with RubyGems:
sudo gem install localtunnel
or to get the source:
git clone http://github.com/progrium/localtunnel.git
localtunnel [options] <localport>
-k, --key FILE upload a public key for authentication
-u, --user {user-name}:{password} authentication to use when uploading public key
-s, --service URL service url to use
-h, --help show this help
Localtunnel is a client to a reverse tunneling service made specifically for web traffic. It’s intended to be used to temporarily expose local web servers to the greater Internet for debugging, unit tests, demos, etc.
This is how you make your local port 8080 public:
$ localtunnel 8080 Port 8080 is now publicly accessible from http://8bv2.localtunnel.com ...
Using localtunnel is comparable to using SSH reverse/remote port forwarding on a remote host that has GatewayPorts enabled, but without all the configuration or the need of a host. The localtunnel command works with a server component which by default is running on localtunnel.com and is provided as a free service. However you can optionally specify a different service.
If you have never run localtunnel before, you’ll need to upload a public key to authenticate. You do this once:
$ localtunnel -k ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub 8080
After that, you shouldn’t have to use -k again.
Localtunnel can be started before or after the local web server. It tunnels through to the url given in that status message “publicly accessible from…” for as long as the command is running. The tunnel is closed if the command exits.
By default localtunnel uses the free service localtunnel.com. However you can use server.py, a twisted reverse proxy web server, to host a localtunnel service yourself as follows:
$ ./server.py 2011-12-21 23:01:19-0800 [-] Log opened. 2011-12-21 23:01:19-0800 [-] twisted.web.server.Site starting on 8080 2011-12-21 23:01:19-0800 [-] Starting factory <twisted.web.server.Site instance at 0x2b4f6c8> 2011-12-21 23:01:24-0800 [-] Received SIGINT, shutting down. 2011-12-21 23:01:24-0800 [twisted.web.server.Site] (TCP Port 8080 Closed) 2011-12-21 23:01:24-0800 [twisted.web.server.Site] Stopping factory <twisted.web.server.Site instance at 0x2b4f6c8> 2011-12-21 23:01:24-0800 [-] Main loop terminated.
If you intend to host your own localtunnel service you may want to run the server as a system service. To help with that refer to the following files:
contrib/localhost - Example init.d script for running localtunnel as a
service.
contrib/localhost.tac - A twisted application conf file used by
contrib/tunneld.
contrib/tunneld - Example script for running localtunnel as a
service. Used by contrib/localhost.
andyl (andy@r210.com) Charles Merriam (charles.merriam@gmail.com) Hunter Gillane (hunter.gillane@gmail.com) Michael Sofaer (msofaer@pivotallabs.com) Jeff Lindsay (progrium@gmail.com)
MIT