Running ngrok as a Service on DigitalOcean Ubuntu Server

mayura andrew,•ngrokdigitaloceanubuntusystemddevops
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ngrok is a handy tool that creates secure tunnels to expose local servers to the internet. It's often used for testing and debugging web applications during development. However, if you want to keep an ngrok tunnel running continuously, you'll need to set it up as a service on your server. In this tutorial, we'll walk through the steps to run ngrok as a service on a DigitalOcean Ubuntu server.

More about ngrok visit their web site -> https://ngrok.com (opens in a new tab)

Prerequisites

Step 1: Install ngrok

First, download and install ngrok on your server. You can find the instructions for installing ngrok on Ubuntu here: https://dashboard.ngrok.com/get-started/setup/linux (opens in a new tab)

Install ngrok via Apt with the following command:

curl -s https://ngrok-agent.s3.amazonaws.com/ngrok.asc \
	| sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/ngrok.asc >/dev/null \
	&& echo "deb https://ngrok-agent.s3.amazonaws.com buster main" \
	| sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ngrok.list \
	&& sudo apt update \
	&& sudo apt install ngrok

Run the following command to add your authtoken to the default ngrok.yml configuration file.

ngrok config add-authtoken <YOUR_AUTH_TOKEN>

Step 2: Create a systemd Service File

Create a new systemd service file to run the ngrok command as a service:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/ngrok.service

Paste the following content into the file, replacing <YOUR_USERNAME> with your actual username and <YOUR_AUTH_TOKEN> with your ngrok authentication token:

[Unit]
Description=Ngrok Tunnel
After=network.target
 
[Service]
Type=simple
User=<YOUR_USERNAME>
WorkingDirectory=/home/<YOUR_USERNAME>
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/ngrok http --domain=<YOUR_STATIC_DOMAIN_FROM_ngrok> <PORT_NUMBER>
Restart=on-failure
Environment=NGROK_AUTH_TOKEN=<YOUR_AUTH_TOKEN>
 
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Step 3: Set the authentication token as an environment variable

You can set the authentication token as an environment variable by running the following command:

export NGROK_AUTH_TOKEN=<YOUR_AUTH_TOKEN>

Step 4: Enable and Start the Service

Enable the service to start on boot:

sudo systemctl enable ngrok

Then, start the service:

sudo systemctl start ngrok

Step 5: Check the Service Status

You can check the status of the service with:

sudo systemctl status ngrok

ngrok service status

This should show you the ngrok output, including the URL that you can use to access your application.

Step 6: Access Your Application

Once the ngrok service is running, you should be able to access your application using the URL provided by ngrok, which will be in the format https://<randomsubdomain>.app

That's it! You've now set up ngrok to run as a service on your DigitalOcean Ubuntu server. Keep in mind that the ngrok URL will change every time you restart the service, so you may need to update your application accordingly. Running ngrok as a service ensures that your tunnel remains active, even after system reboots or network interruptions. This is particularly useful for testing and debugging web applications during development or for exposing local servers to the internet for specific use cases.

Thank you! 😄