Sharing via ngrok

Sharing via ngrok

ngrok is a hosted reverse proxy service. It allows you to create a secure tunnel from a public endpoint to a locally running web service.

Vagrant share can be driven using ngrok from the underlying transport by supplying the --driver ngrok flag to vagrant share.

The ngrok driver is not enabled by default. When starting the Vagrant share, ngrok must be specified as the driver. Users connecting to the share must also specify the ngrok driver to make a proper connection.

Sharing

Starting a Vagrant share using the ngrok driver is very similar to the default Vagrant share command. The only addition it requires is the --driver ngrok flag:

$ vagrant share --driver ngrok

By default this will create a public HTTP endpoint connected to the shared VM via an ngrok process. When only HTTP is being shared, no connection is required from the remote side. All that is required is the public ngrok URL.

SSH

To share an ssh connection to the shared VM the --ssh flag must be provided. Vagrant share will then create a small utility VM to enable the share with remote users. Once the setup is complete, a name will be assigned to the utility VM that remote users can reach using the vagrant connect command.

Full Share

To enable full remote access to the shared VM the --full flag must be provided. This will enable remote users connecting to the local share full access to all forwarded ports defined by the shared VM Vagrantfile.

Connecting

Much like the vagrant share command, when connecting to a Vagrant share that was created using the ngrok driver, the --driver ngrok flag must be provided:

$ vagrant connect --driver ngrok share_name

ngrok configuration

The current user's ngrok configuration file is used by default when tunnels are created for Vagrant share. While specific customization to the ngrok configuration is not yet supported, the feature is being actively worked on and will be available in the future.