Quickly Share Your Local Rails App with Ngrok and Pow

If you need to share the progress of your web application with others or put it online quickly without setting up a server, Ngrok can be a great solution.

Last weekend, I had to demo a Rails app I was developing, but I didn’t have time to create a new online server and deploy it. Instead, I used Ngrok, a magical service a coworker introduced me to.

What is Ngrok?

Ngrok provides a simple way to expose local servers behind NATs and firewalls to the public internet via secure tunnels. In just a few seconds, your web app can be accessible online.

Setting Up Ngrok

Create an account on ngrok.com to get a tunnel authtoken.
Download the Ngrok binary from the official website.
Configure your authtoken:

./ngrok authtoken YOUR_TUNNEL_AUTHTOKEN

Starting a Secure Tunnel

To expose your local web application, run:

./ngrok http 80

Ngrok will generate an external URL (e.g., abcdefg.ngrok.io) where your application will be accessible.

To monitor traffic passing through the tunnel, visit:

http://localhost:4040

To stop the tunnel, simply press Ctrl+C.

What is Pow?

Pow is a zero-config Rack server for Mac OS X, making it easy to manage Rails apps locally. If you’re on Linux, you can use an alternative like Prax.

Installing Pow

To install Pow, run:

curl get.pow.cx | sh

Then, set up a Rack app by creating a symlink in ~/.pow:

cd ~/.pow
ln -s /path/to/some/railsapp

Your app will now be available at:

http://railsapp.dev/

Using Ngrok with Pow

If you have your Rails app running with Pow, you can make it publicly accessible using Ngrok by running:

./ngrok http -host-header=railsapp.dev railsapp.dev:80

And that’s it! Now your local Rails app is online for sharing and testing. 😃