What is NGROK? Detailed instructions for use

NGROK is a remote connection tool designed to solve network accessibility problems, which is becoming increasingly popular. This article  TipsMake  will give you an overview of NGROK, how it works, how to install and use this tool.

What is NGROK?

NGROK was first developed in 2013, with the goal of providing a simple and effective solution for remote access to internal services. In simple terms, NGROK acts as a bridge between your internal network and the outside world, allowing you to access services, applications, servers running on your internal network from any device with an Internet connection.

NGROK has undergone many upgrades and improvements, adding many new features to meet the increasing needs of users.

How does NGROK work?

Ngrok works by establishing a connection between the Ngrok server and your computer. When you start Ngrok and specify a port, Ngrok generates a temporary URL that you can share with others. When someone visits this address, the traffic is forwarded to the application running on your computer via the port you specified.

Some important features of NGROK

NGROK Tunneling

NGROK allows creating TCP and UDP tunnels, supporting popular network protocols such as HTTP, HTTPS, SSH, RDP, MySQL, PostgreSQL,. Users can create tunnels to any port on the internal server. 

Data encryption

NGROK uses TLS/SSL encryption to protect data transmitted through the tunnel. All data transmitted through NGROK is encrypted, helping to protect important information.

Provide temporary domain name

NGROK provides a temporary domain name, allowing users to easily share URL addresses with others without complicated DNS configuration. 

Supported authentication protocols

The authentication protocols that NGROK supports include: OAuth and Basic Authentication. These protocols help control access to the NGROK tunnel and protect data from unauthorized access. 

Load Balancing

NGROK's load balancing feature evenly distributes traffic to multiple internal servers. This helps you ensure application performance and stability, especially when the application has to handle large traffic volumes.

Provide tracking and statistics system

Users can easily monitor tunnel activity, traffic, and resource usage. Additionally, the monitoring system can be used to analyze system performance, identify problems, and optimize application efficiency.

Some features of NGROK

Useful applications of NGROK

Serving the Development and Testing field

NGROK allows users to easily share their web applications with others. It allows you to easily debug and test your application in an intranet environment without having to deploy it to an online server. 

NGROK supports many popular programming languages ​​and frameworks such as Python, Node.js, Java, .NET, React, Angular, Vue.js,. making it easy for you to integrate NGROK into your development process.

Support access to External Network

Users can remotely access devices or internal networks behind firewalls, routers, or NATs. You can use NGROK to remotely access personal computers, intranet servers, VPNs, etc. from anywhere with an Internet connection. 

Improve the performance of some services

NGROK can act as an API Gateway, helping manage and secure APIs. Additionally, NGROK also supports tunneling to containers in Kubernetes, supporting debugging and application management in containerized environments. 

Furthermore, NGROK can also be used to create an Identity-Aware Proxy, allowing access control to applications based on user identity.

Remote access support

NGROK allows you to remotely access SSH servers through tunnels, allowing you to manage and secure your servers from anywhere. In addition, NGROK also supports creating RDP tunnels. You can access your personal computer from anywhere through a graphical interface. 

Is NGROK safe?

NGROK is fundamentally a secure tool, using TLS/SSL encryption to protect data transmitted through the tunnel. However, like any other service, NGROK also has certain risks. Some security notes when using NGROK:

- Store sensitive information: Do not store sensitive information such as passwords, account information, payment information on servers accessed through NGROK. 

- Update NGROK: You should regularly update NGROK to the latest version to fix security vulnerabilities.

- Check connection: Make sure the connection between your computer and the NGROK server is fully encrypted by checking the SSL certificate.

- Restrict access: Use authentication protocols like OAuth or Basic Authentication.

Detailed NGROK installation instructions

Step 1: Download NGROK

Go to NGROK's website: https://ngrok.com/ and download the version suitable for your operating system (Windows, macOS, Linux). 

Step 2: Unzip NGROK

After downloading, you need to unzip the downloaded file to prepare for the installation process.

Step 3: Install NGROK

Run the command shown to perform the installation. NGROK will be installed to the directory corresponding to your operating system.

Some common commands used on NGROK

- Install wget and unzip:

yum install -y wget unzip

- Download NGROK installation:

wget https://bin.equinox.io/c/4VmDzA7iaHb/ngrok-stable-linux-amd64.zip

- Unzip NGROK:

unzip ngrok-stable-linux-amd64.zip

- Run the command to see the user guide:

./ngrok help

Conclude

NGROK is an extremely useful tool for developers, network engineers, and anyone who needs to connect to internal networks from the outside. NGROK provides a simple, secure, and reliable way to remotely tunnel and access servers, applications, and services inside an internal network.

However, using NGROK requires users to have a clear understanding of its features and limitations in order to use it effectively and safely. 

Jessica Tanner

Update 12 February 2025