[HN Gopher] Show HN: Quick tunnels to localhost with one command...
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       Show HN: Quick tunnels to localhost with one command and no binary
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       Author : ghoshbishakh
       Score  : 80 points
       Date   : 2023-01-11 12:18 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (pinggy.io)
 (TXT) w3m dump (pinggy.io)
        
       | disqard wrote:
       | Very cool idea and implementation!
       | 
       | Will you charge some money so you are sustainably supported and
       | this doesn't disappear in N months? I'd love to use it and then
       | be able to rely on it long-term.
       | 
       | Free services are great, but services that stick around are even
       | better :)
        
         | ghoshbishakh wrote:
         | We are definitely going to have a subscription. :) This is an
         | alpha version, still we will keep the service stable. More
         | features and a paid tier will be announced next month.
        
       | modinfo wrote:
       | This is a great project! Maybe add traffic payments? E.g. in the
       | free plan will be 1GB/month and in the paid plan will be more.
       | Because now anyone can use your server without limits. In the
       | paid plan, the user could also set his own subdomain.
       | 
       | PS. I wonder why such an interesting project has so few upvotes.
        
         | ghoshbishakh wrote:
         | Thank you for your encouraging words. Indeed we will gradually
         | introduce paid tiers. Pinggy is in alpha stage. With your
         | feedback we will work towards a mature offering.
        
       | bluelightning2k wrote:
       | Hey. Thanks for this. I can't give up ngrok (which I find too
       | expensive) without the ability to view and replay requests.
       | That's a must have for me personally
        
         | ghoshbishakh wrote:
         | Yes, this is one feature we are working on currently and us
         | almost ready. We will keep you posted if you sign up.
        
       | egorfine wrote:
       | One of the ways to extend the functionality of the service
       | without requiring a binary client is to present a text UI over
       | ssh.
        
         | ghoshbishakh wrote:
         | Thank a lot for this pointer. We are trying to find out a safe
         | way of enabling a text UI through ssh.
        
       | abhimp wrote:
       | Do you support introspec? I don't see any documentation.
        
         | ghoshbishakh wrote:
         | By introspec do you mean viewing the details of requests coming
         | to the tunnel? If so then it is a work in progress feature that
         | would be available very soon. However that will be available
         | through the client binary. We are brainstorming if it can also
         | be made possible without the binary.
         | 
         | Documentation regarding this will be added soon.
        
       | socks wrote:
       | I used to use a similar tool called inlets but they removed the
       | open licensing. I now self host a sish server
       | (https://github.com/antoniomika/sish) which also uses ssh (and
       | public key auth) for the reverse tunnel client. So much simpler!
        
       | wzulfikar wrote:
       | ngrok can do ssh reverse too (https://ngrok.com/docs/secure-
       | tunnels/agentless). Do you plan to have some difference with
       | ngrok in this area?
       | 
       | Also interesting to see people had issues with ngrok. Been using
       | ngrok since its first release and it's always good.
        
         | wzulfikar wrote:
         | Just realised that i need to upload my public key for ngrok
         | agentless to work. But for pinggy, it just works as soon as I
         | paste the command. Cool!
        
       | keyme wrote:
       | Very clever! This is the most hacky and elegant solution to this
       | problem I've seen.
        
         | ghoshbishakh wrote:
         | Delighted to know you liked it! We are working on bringing more
         | features and we are convinced that everything must work through
         | this ssh tunnel.
        
           | keyme wrote:
           | Add a mode to share a file, again using SSH alone. Works
           | together with "python3 -m http.server", obviously, but should
           | be possible with SSH alone. This would be the first time
           | since the invention of NATs one can share a file over the
           | internet without uploading it anywhere or downloading any
           | executable!
        
             | ghoshbishakh wrote:
             | We have to think and work through the limitations of SSH.
             | We will cover whatever is possible. Thank you for the
             | pointer!!
        
       | maxcan wrote:
       | Very cool. I switched to cloudflare tunnels from ngrok a while
       | back after having some issues with ngrok.
       | 
       | However, CF Tunnels were far from ergonomic or easy to use (
       | https://www.maxcantor.com/blog/2021-10-15-ngrok-to-cloudflar...
       | ).
       | 
       | I'd love a simple tool that fills the gap and I think this is it.
        
         | ghoshbishakh wrote:
         | Thank you for the encouragement. Indeed we want to keep the
         | user experience as simple as possible. This is just the alpha
         | version, keep in touch for more updates.
        
         | dieselgate wrote:
         | My brain still auto-translates "CF" to Adobe ColdFusion.
         | Regardless I'm not familiar with cloudflare tunnels so cool to
         | be made aware of that
        
       | aspirin wrote:
       | Looks great, but you should add an explanation about how it
       | works. I'm hesitant to just run some command.
        
         | ghoshbishakh wrote:
         | Good point. It opens a SSH tunnel from Pinggy server to your
         | localhost, such that the pinggy server can connect to only the
         | port of your localhost that you specify in the command. The ssh
         | port forwarding command is a standard one and your ssh client
         | ensures that the access is restricted to the port you are
         | specifically exposing.
         | 
         | In other words, you are trusting your own system and your ssh
         | client installation for security, which is more trustworthy
         | than a random executable app downloaded from the internet.
         | 
         | We will include an explanation in the next version of our
         | landing page. Appreciate your feedback!
        
           | avinassh wrote:
           | What are the implications of SSHing into some random server?
           | Could you also add some instructions on the kind of
           | precautions one should take before ssh into pinggy
        
             | ghoshbishakh wrote:
             | The implication of the ssh port forwarding command is that
             | pinggy is able to connect to the port you are specifying.
             | For example 8000. Then Pinggy and through pinggy anyone who
             | visits the public URL can connect to port 8000 (through
             | HTTP requests).
        
       | christophilus wrote:
       | This is a pretty elegant solution. I'm a fan of using existing
       | tools where've possible.
        
         | ghoshbishakh wrote:
         | Glad you find this neat. We are also trying to build introspect
         | capability without using the client binary.
        
       | ghoshbishakh wrote:
       | Hello HN! Yes this is just like ngrok. But do not need to
       | download any binary to get started.
       | 
       | You can even get a persistent subdomain by signing in. A binary
       | client is optional for more features like stats about visitors.
       | 
       | The server is not a ssh server. It however uses the protocol.
       | 
       | More about TLS and TCP tunnels coming soon :)
       | 
       | Please give it a try and we would love some feedback:
       | 
       | https://forms.reform.app/DtpE3m/early-access/jJ9Ibq
        
       | hedora wrote:
       | What is the value add over just running your own SSH server at a
       | persistent domain? The TUI? Unlimited bandwidth? Cost?
        
         | ghoshbishakh wrote:
         | This is not a SSH server. Yes, you can run your own SSH server
         | at a persistent domain. But if you could run a SSH server with
         | a persistent domain then you would not use Ngrok also right?
         | 
         | The value is in getting public URLs for sharing your localhost
         | instantly without any infrastructure or software setup.
        
           | hedora wrote:
           | You can run the same command against any default configured
           | ssh server.
           | 
           | I have never heard of ngrok, and have used ssh tunnels for
           | over a decade.
           | 
           | I must be missing something.
        
       | mihaigalos wrote:
       | Thanks for this. Related: https://tmate.io/
        
         | ghoshbishakh wrote:
         | This is so cool! Love the idea. Thanks for sharing.
        
       | mkenny wrote:
       | I have experienced a lot of frustration trying to set up ngrok in
       | the past, so this looks very interesting! I will have to try it
       | out soon! Thanks for sharing!
        
       | rroohhiittt wrote:
       | Great project! Would've been even more awesome if you could also
       | print the access log or somehow print that ncurses UI on the SSH
       | tunnel output as well.
        
         | ghoshbishakh wrote:
         | The access log is available if you use the Pinggy client
         | binary. We are working to make this available through ssh also.
         | Will keep you posted if you sign up. Thanks for the
         | suggestions, really appreciate it!
        
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       (page generated 2023-01-11 23:02 UTC)