Install Ngrok & Setup the Auth-Token on Linux

1. What is Ngrok used for?

Ngrok allows you to easily create a secure public URL to any web server running on your local machine. This provides external access and tunneling to local development environments.

2. What can I use Ngrok for?

Ngrok can be used for the following purposes:

• Expose your local websites publicly for testing
• Share your local web server with others for review
• Debug issues by allowing external access
• Test APIs and webhooks with remote services
• Remote access to your local machine services
• Temporarily share files from your local machine

3. Why would I want to expose my local sites publicly?

It allows you to test sites in progress, demonstrate new changes, let others use tools hosted locally, check issues on different devices, networks etc before deploying publicly.

4. Is Ngrok secure?

Yes. Ngrok establishes secure tunnels using TLS and end-to-end encryption. All data transfer is encrypted across the tunnel.

5. Is Ngrok free?

Yes, Ngrok has a free tier. Paid tiers offer custom subdomains, more bandwidth etc. But the core tunneling capability is free.

6. Can I use Ngrok for Port-Forwarding?

Yes, Ngrok can be used for port forwarding – here is a simple explanation :

• Port forwarding allows you to tunnel external requests to a specific port on your local machine.
• Ngrok provides the ability to easily port forward to any port on your local machine with a single command.

Ngrok is a tool that allows you to create a secure tunnel from a public endpoint to a locally running web service on your machine. In simpler terms, ngrok lets you expose a web server running on your local machine to the internet. So others can access what you are running locally.

For example, if you are developing a web application on your laptop, you can use ngrok to generate a public URL that will tunnel traffic to your local development environment. This allows you to easily share your local work with others for testing, and demonstrations, or access it yourself from anywhere. All without needing to deploy it on a live server.

In short, Ngrok creates a secure public tunnel to whatever you are running locally on your machine. It makes your local development environment accessible from the internet.