Skip to main content

Ngrok selfhosted alternative

· 3 min read
Anton Ilinykh
Anton Ilinykh
Software Engineer

Ngrok is a popular tool for web developers that lets you create secure tunnels from the public internet to local servers running on a developer's machine. However, it may not be available with certain providers.

$ ngrok http 3000
ERROR:  authentication failed: We do not allow agents to connect to ngrok from your IP address (188.146.58.201).
ERROR:
ERROR:  ERR_NGROK_9040
ERROR:  https://ngrok.com/docs/errors/err_ngrok_9040
ERROR:

Luckily, there is an open-source alternative called sish. It can be deployed on your personal web server, and here is a step-by-step tutorial on how to do it.

Let’s start with the minimal infrastructure you’ll need.

Infrastructure configuration​

Step I. Configure the remote server​

The easiest way to deploy sish is with docker compose.

Create compose.yml file:

/opt/sish/compose.yml
services:
  sish:
    image: antoniomika/sish:latest
    container_name: sish
    volumes:
      - ./keys:/keys
    ports:
      - 2222:22
    command: |
      --ssh-address=:22
      --http-address=:80
      --bind-random-ports=false
      --bind-random-subdomains=false
      --domain=example.com
      --authentication-keys-directory=/keys
      --private-keys-directory=/keys
    restart: unless-stopped

Replace --domain=example.com with a domain you own.

Create keys directory:

mkdir -p /opt/sish/keys

Step II. Add your public key​

Since sish uses SSH, you’ll need to copy your public key to the server:

scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub example.com:/opt/sish/keys/
info

Instead of RSA, use a Ed25519 - it's faster and considered more secure in most cases.

Step III. Run sish and open a tunnel​

On the remote host, start the service:

docker-compose -f /opt/sish/compose.yml up -d

On your local machine, run your web app (say, on port 3000) and start a tunnel:

ssh -p 2222 -R dev:80:localhost:3000 example.com

If it worked, you’ll see:

Press Ctrl-C to close the session.

Starting SSH Forwarding service for http:80. Forwarded connections can be accessed via the following methods:
HTTP: http://dev.example.com

Now open dev.example.com in your browser - and you're all set!

Bonus: WebSocket support​

To keep WebSocket connections from reconnecting every few seconds, add this line:

/opt/sish/compose.yml
services:
  sish:
    image: antoniomika/sish:latest
    container_name: sish
    volumes:
      - ./keys:/keys
    ports:
      - 2222:22
    command: |
      --ssh-address=:22
      --http-address=:80
      --bind-random-ports=false
      --bind-random-subdomains=false
      --domain=example.com
      --authentication-keys-directory=/keys
      --private-keys-directory=/keys
      --idle-connection=false
    restart: unless-stopped

👉 That’s it — you’ve got your own self-hosted ngrok alternative running!