localtunnel VS Bitsii

Thanks for the history. I maintain this list[0], and wasn't aware of OG localtunnel, likely because there's a somewhat newer and now more popular project with the same name[1]. You appear to be correct on timing. Here's the earliest commits on GitHub for each of the projects:

OG localtunnel (2010): https://github.com/progrium/localtunnel/tree/fb82920d9d3e538...

Other localtunnel (2012): https://github.com/localtunnel/localtunnel/tree/93d62b9dbb9f...

ngrok (2012): https://github.com/inconshreveable/ngrok/tree/8f4795ecac7f92...

I'll see that OG localtunnel gets added to the list for posterity.

[0]: https://github.com/anderspitman/awesome-tunneling

[1]: https://github.com/localtunnel/localtunnel

These is a very common problem. Luckily, it's been solved already. My go-to tool for this was ngrok or localtunnel. Both of these tools are great, but they didn't fit my needs perfectly.

localtunnel — Expose locally running servers over a tunnel to a public URL. Free hosted version, and open source.

Localtunnel used to be a nice tunnel. It has gone through some enshittification lately.

> tunnel consent page now requires the tunnel creator's public IP in order to access tunnel content

https://github.com/localtunnel/localtunnel/issues/598

There are free non kafkaesque competitors out there.

I recently went through having to tunnel my development environment to setup an oauth2 flow for a rails integration. I found that using https://github.com/localtunnel/localtunnel was a better fit.

I prefer localtunnel: https://github.com/localtunnel/localtunnel

There's also Local Tunnel (http://localtunnel.me)

Not sure if it works combined with ngrok: https://www.npmjs.com/package/localtunnel

I just can't do it, using Bitsii, I get to download all the stuff and DuckDns, but when on the setup page i need to enter an account for itsii, the site doesn't load on any of my devices, i tried something else but i doesn't work.

Of course - first you install Bitsii Bridge. If your network is a "residential ISP" style arrangement and you have UPnP enabled on your home router and it has a public IP "on the outside" you are good to go at that point from the network perspective. If not you can also setup a bridge instance on a vps (including a free google cloud instance) and the Bridge can expose ssh via an ssh tunnel on the vps which will tie back to your local ssh instance. Once you have the bridge setup you can tell it to forward a port into your ssh service (or other services)

Hello - I wanted to share my project which tries to make selfhosting accessible to everyone. Please check it out here and if you're feeling brave try it out and share your feedback...

Well - my project Bitsii Webcam might be an option as it doesn't try to do real time video - it takes snapshots (to compressed image files, which it can roll hourly into an mjpeg). Likely needs a lot less bandwidth than solutions that want to send you video - might be OK on your slow connection...

Cloudflare is a nice way because it gives you a "free dynamic dns to a domain you own" option. You can sometimes do this with other registrars that have api's but cloudflare is pretty easy and is supported by different ddns clients. Taking a step back - this is assuming it's not hosted on a vps or something with a fixed address? If the latter you can potentially just add a dns entry (a record) at your registrar (most give you free dns hosting) to your webserver address. If your webserver does not have a fixed address you can enable cloudflare with a "free" plan, tell your registrar to use cloudflare's name servers, then use cloudflare dynamic dns to set it (you can also set cloudflare to a fixed ip - but it's probably not worth bothering with cloudflare unless you need the dynamic dns). If you want something that wraps this up with let's encrypt certs, etc, you could try my project - it supports this cloudflare-your-own-domain configuration I'm suggesting here....

My Project - Bitsii Bridge is meant to be exactly this - easy for inexperienced folks to get started with. It doesn't support all of the software options of the others - partly because it's limited to ones that seem to have a low-barrier to entry technically speaking, and also because it's new :-) If you decide to try it out let me know how it goes...

So this is one of the capabilities of my project Bitsii Bridge - spoiler alert, the Files UI is a little rough but it let's you (and others) up and download pretty much any file over the web, you can just create accounts for folks and add shared folders, all from the ui. Runs on windows/mac/linux/pi, will setup ssl/let's encrypt and put itself on the internet from a typical home connection with upnp. It also let's you install a webdav server but then it isn't all in the web ui - you have to tell folks now to connect up webdav (but then it's in their native file manager on pretty much any os, so possible option...).

You can do this (pretty easily) with Bitsii Bridge (disclaimer - my project) - it actually runs the nginx instance locally, not on the vps, and uses an ssh tunnel to the vps to open the connection on the internet. Mostly, this is easier :-) it has the disadvantage of not allowing nginx/web apps to know the real remote ip, so I've been thinking of adding a mode where the proxy runs on the vps - but haven't yet. Depending on your needs that may not matter a great deal...

Bitsii Bridge does this automatically (and setups up nginx reverse proxy and let's encrypt ssl) - you give it your account, cloudflare api key, the domain, and the name for the dns entry, and it will create and maintain it (includes the dynamic dns functionality...)