ngrok Installation and Public URL Checking Methods [macOS Edition]
I’ll introduce how to install ngrok, start it, and check public URLs.
Installing ngrok
Official Site Steps
Download from the official site ngrok - download, unzip, and run the ngrok file to start it.
macOS Edition
On macOS, you can also install ngrok via Homebrew.
brew cask install ngrok
Check ngrok Version
To be sure, I checked the ngrok version and found that the official site and Homebrew versions were the same.
$ ngrok version
ngrok version 2.3.25
$ ~/Downloads/ngrok version
ngrok version 2.3.25
How to Start ngrok
Expose a local web server to the internet | ngrok – documentation
ngrok http 8080
How to Check ngrok Public URL
After starting ngrok with ngrok http 8080, you can check from the Forwarding section output to the Terminal.
$ ngrok http 8080
ngrok by @inconshreveable (Ctrl+C to quit)
Session Status online
Session Expires 7 hours, 59 minutes
Version 2.3.25
Region United States (us)
Web Interface http://127.0.0.1:4040
Forwarding http://b0ef9220.ngrok.io -> http://localhost:8080
Forwarding https://b0ef9220.ngrok.io -> http://localhost:8080
Connections ttl opn rt1 rt5 p50 p90
0 0 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Check from Web Browser
Inspecting your traffic | ngrok – documentation
You can open URLs like these in your browser to check.
Check from Client API
List Tunnels - Client API | ngrok – documentation
http://localhost:4040/api/tunnels returns a JSON response, and the public_url value corresponds to the public URL.
$ curl -s http://localhost:4040/api/tunnels | jq | grep public_url
"public_url": "https://b0ef9220.ngrok.io",
"public_url": "http://b0ef9220.ngrok.io",
Below are the curl output results and the results processed with jq command.
Output Result: curl http://localhost:4040/api/tunnels
$ curl -s http://localhost:4040/api/tunnels
{"tunnels":[{"name":"command_line (http)","uri":"/api/tunnels/command_line%20%28http%29","public_url":"http://b0ef9220.ngrok.io","proto":"http","config":{"addr":"http://localhost:8080","inspect":true},"metrics":{"conns":{"count":0,"gauge":0,"rate1":0,"rate5":0,"rate15":0,"p50":0,"p90":0,"p95":0,"p99":0},"http":{"count":0,"rate1":0,"rate5":0,"rate15":0,"p50":0,"p90":0,"p95":0,"p99":0}}},{"name":"command_line","uri":"/api/tunnels/command_line","public_url":"https://b0ef9220.ngrok.io","proto":"https","config":{"addr":"http://localhost:8080","inspect":true},"metrics":{"conns":{"count":0,"gauge":0,"rate1":0,"rate5":0,"rate15":0,"p50":0,"p90":0,"p95":0,"p99":0},"http":{"count":0,"rate1":0,"rate5":0,"rate15":0,"p50":0,"p90":0,"p95":0,"p99":0}}}],"uri":"/api/tunnels"}
Output Result: jq Processed Version
$ curl -s http://localhost:4040/api/tunnels | jq
{
"tunnels": [
{
"name": "command_line",
"uri": "/api/tunnels/command_line",
"public_url": "https://b0ef9220.ngrok.io",
"proto": "https",
"config": {
"addr": "http://localhost:8080",
"inspect": true
},
"metrics": {
"conns": {
"count": 0,
"gauge": 0,
"rate1": 0,
"rate5": 0,
"rate15": 0,
"p50": 0,
"p90": 0,
"p95": 0,
"p99": 0
},
"http": {
"count": 0,
"rate1": 0,
"rate5": 0,
"rate15": 0,
"p50": 0,
"p90": 0,
"p95": 0,
"p99": 0
}
}
},
{
"name": "command_line (http)",
"uri": "/api/tunnels/command_line%20%28http%29",
"public_url": "http://b0ef9220.ngrok.io",
"proto": "http",
"config": {
"addr": "http://localhost:8080",
"inspect": true
},
"metrics": {
"conns": {
"count": 0,
"gauge": 0,
"rate1": 0,
"rate5": 0,
"rate15": 0,
"p50": 0,
"p90": 0,
"p95": 0,
"p99": 0
},
"http": {
"count": 0,
"rate1": 0,
"rate5": 0,
"rate15": 0,
"p50": 0,
"p90": 0,
"p95": 0,
"p99": 0
}
}
}
],
"uri": "/api/tunnels"
}
That’s all from the Gemba on wanting to use ngrok to make Android and iOS app development more comfortable.