Expose your localhost to the web. Node wrapper for ngrok.
Expose your localhost to the web. Node wrapper for ngrok.
This project is the Node.js wrapper for the ngrok client. Version 5 of this project uses ngrok client version 3. For ngrok client version 2, check out version 4.
Install the package with npm:
npm install ngrokThen use ngrok.connect() to start ngrok and open a tunnel.
const ngrok = require('ngrok');
(async function() {
const url = await ngrok.connect();
})();This module uses node>=10.19.0 with async/await. For a callback-based version use 2.3.0.
npm install ngrok -g
ngrok http 8080For global install on Linux, you might need to run sudo npm install --unsafe-perm -g ngrok due to the nature of npm postinstall script.
You can create basic http-https-tcp tunnel without an authtoken. For custom subdomains and more you should obtain an authtoken by signing up at ngrok.com. Once you set the authtoken, it is stored in ngrok config and used for all tunnels. You can set the authtoken directly:
await ngrok.authtoken(token);Or pass the authtoken to the connect method like so:
await ngrok.connect({authtoken: token, ...});There are a number of ways to create a tunnel with ngrok using the connect method.
By default, connect will open an HTTP tunnel to port 80
const url = await ngrok.connect(); // https://757c1652.ngrok.io -> http://localhost:80You can pass the port number to connect to specify that port:
const url = await ngrok.connect(9090); // https://757c1652.ngrok.io -> http://localhost:9090Or you can pass an object of options, for example:
const url = await ngrok.connect({proto: 'tcp', addr: 22}); // tcp://0.tcp.ngrok.io:48590
const url = await ngrok.connect(opts);There are many options that you can pass to connect, here are some examples:
…See the ngrok documentation for all of the tunnel definition options including: name, inspect, host_header, scheme, hostname, crt, key, remote_addr.
Note on regions:
The ngrok process and all tunnels will be killed when node process is complete. To stop the tunnels manually use:
await ngrok.disconnect(url); // stops one
await ngrok.disconnect(); // stops all
await ngrok.kill(); // kills ngrok processYou can use ngrok's configurations files, and pass name option when making a tunnel. Configuration files allow to store tunnel options. Ngrok looks for them here:
| System | Path |
|---|---|
| MacOS (Darwin) | "~/Library/Application Support/ngrok/ngrok.yml" |
| Linux | "~/.config/ngrok/ngrok.yml" |
| Windows | "%HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\ngrok\ngrok.yml" |
You can specify a custom configPath when making a tunnel.
With the upgrade to ngrok version 3, an older config file will no longer be compatible without a few changes. The ngrok agent provides a command to upgrade your config. On the command line you can run:
ngrok config upgradeThe default locations of the config file have changed too, you can upgrade and move your config file with the command:
ngrok config upgrade --relocateThe library makes this command available as well. To get the same effect you can run:
await ngrok.upgradeConfig();
// relocate the config file too:
await ngrok.upgradeConfig({ relocate: true });When a tunnel is established you can use the ngrok interface hosted at http://127.0.0.1:4040 to inspect the webhooks made via ngrok.
The same URL hosts the internal client api. This package exposes an API client that wraps the API which you can use to manage tunnels yourself.
const url = await ngrok.connect();
const api = ngrok.getApi();
const tunnels = await api.listTunnels();You can also get the URL of the internal API:
const url = await ngrok.connect();
const apiUrl = ngrok.getUrl();The API wrapper gives access to all the ngrok client API methods:
const url = await ngrok.connect();
const api = ngrok.getApi();const tunnels = await api.listTunnels();const tunnel = await api.startTunnel(opts);const tunnel = await api.tunnelDetail(tunnelName);await api.stopTunnel(tunnelName);await api.listRequests(options);await api.replayRequest(requestId, tunnelName);await api.deleteAllRequests();const request = await api.requestDetail(requestId);HTTPS_PROXY env var to fix it. ngrok's postinstall scripts uses the got module to fetch the binary and the hpagent module to support HTTPS proxies. You will need to install the hpagent module as a dependencyNGROK_ROOT_CA_PATH. The path is needed for downloading the ngrok binary in the postinstall scriptnpm install downloads the ngrok binary for your platform from the official ngrok hosting. To host binaries yourself set the NGROK_CDN_URL environment variable before installing ngrok. To force specific platform set NGROK_ARCH, eg NGROK_ARCH=freebsdia32.
The first time you create a tunnel the ngrok process is spawned and runs until you disconnect or when the parent process is killed. All further tunnels are connected or disconnected through the internal ngrok API which usually runs on http://127.0.0.1:4040.
If you would like to force an update of the ngrok binary directly from your software, you can require the ngrok/download module and call the downloadNgrok function directly:
const downloadNgrok = require('ngrok/download');
downloadNgrok(myCallbackFunc, { ignoreCache: true });If you want your application to restart as you make changes to it, you may use nodemon. This blog post shows how to use nodemon and ngrok together so your server restarts but your tunnel doesn't.
Please run git update-index --assume-unchanged bin/ngrok to not override ngrok stub in your PR. Unfortunately it can't be gitignored.
The test suite covers the basic usage without an authtoken, as well as features available for free and paid authtokens. You can supply your own tokens as environment variables, otherwise a warning is given and some specs are ignored (locally and in PR builds). GitHub Actions supplies real tokens to master branch and runs all specs always.
Please read the upgrade notes for the ngrok agent. Library specific changes are described below and there is more in the CHANGELOG:
The format and default location of the config file has changed. Please see the section on upgrading your config file for more detail.
The bind_tls option is now scheme. When bind_tls was true (the default), ngrok agent version 2 would start two tunnels, one on http and one on https. Now, when scheme is set to https (the default), only an https tunnel will be created. To create both tunnels, you will need to pass ["http", "https"] as the scheme option.
The auth option, also available as httpauth, is now just basic_auth. Note also that the password for basic_auth must be between 8 and 128 characters long.
In April 2023, ngrok introduced the ngrok static free-domain, which brings you a static subdomain even for free accounts. To make use of it, just use the domain option when creating a tunnel. Example:
ngrok.connect({
domain: "xxx.ngrok-free.app"
authtoken: "YOUR-AUTH-TOKEN"
})Note: Please make sure to either use the subdomain or the domain option. Using both would lead to using the subdomain only.
The main impetus to update the package was to remove the dependency on the deprecated request module. request was replaced with got. Calls to the main ngrok functions, connect, authtoken, disconnect, kill, getVersion and getUrl respond the same as in version 3.
Updating the HTTP library, meant that the wrapped API would change, so a client class was created with methods for the available API calls. See the documentation above for how to use the API client.
The upside is that you no longer have to know the path to the API method you need. For example, to list the active tunnels in version 3 you would do:
const api = ngrok.getApi();
const tunnels = await api.get('api/tunnels');Now you can call the listTunnels function:
const api = ngrok.getApi();
const tunnels = await api.listTunnels();From version 3 to version 4 the bundled types we
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