Ngrok for Omega2+ / Omega Pro ?



  • I've inquired about this here before and apologize for the redundancy, but have there been any developments on this front .. meaning is there any way to install and run ngrok --- or something similar to ngrok -- on an Omega device?

    https://ngrok.com/

    To be more specific, I'm looking for a way to make Onion accessible over the internet via some kind of either temporary or permanent host name/URL.

    I understand that Blynk and IFTTT exist and can be leveraged for this sort of thing, but neither of these are particular useful for my purposes. I'm basically just looking to host a lightweight, PHP-based website on the device, and would like to be able to access it over the internet. How might I go about this?

    Thanks,
    -- Yvan



  • Anyone? No such thing exists?



  • @Yvan-Gagnon looks like is a proprietary product supplied in binary form.

    From your description, why not just setup your php site on uhttpd / nginx on the device and then use port forwarding on your router to make the site accesible from the internet.



  • I'm certainly open to trying that .. but how exactly do I configure this? And is that really the best way to do that? Wouldn't some kind of dynamic DNS type solution be more secure?

    -- Yvan



  • @Yvan-Gagnon Dynamic DNS won't remove the need to forward though your router, you may also need to subscribe to something like dyndns if your ISP doesn't give you a static IP.

    If you log into your router configuration there is usually a section to allow you to setup port forwarding, it basically works by exposing some port on the internet facing side of the router (WAN) using its public IP and when the request comes to the router from the internet on the specified port, the router routes the request to the internal LAN on whatever port you specify. You may need to update the firewall rules on your router as well, but most do this automatically when you set up the port forwarding.

    If your ISP provides you with a static IP then you don't need a dynamic DNS service because your router's WAN IP is always the same, however here in Australia most ISP will assign you a dynamic IP so your IP will change from time to time, in which case a normal DNS would need to be manually updated each time the IP changed and many DNS take hours to start responding to DNS requests with the updated IP. With a service like DynDNS your router notifies their DNS when your WAN IP changes and their DNS is automaticaly updated. Some routers can be configured to use DynDNS and similar services, some cannot. There are software solutions that can assist if your router doesn't support DynDNS etc.



  • I currently have a static IP and a cheap TP-Link router, and have located the section in my router's admin interface where I'll be able to set up the port forwarding. I'm assuming that I'd need to forward port 8080 (for HTTP traffic) .. that I'd use the same port # for both the Service and Internal ports, and that I should specify "HTTP" as the common service port. Does that sound about right? Below is a screenshot of what I'm looking at for reference.

    Thanks,
    -- Yvan

    screenshot-192.168.0.1-2020.06.03-13_13_19.png



  • @Yvan-Gagnon this is not really a queston for this forum, but your interpretation looks correct. You can also expose a different port number on the service port and the internal port since they get mapped. I would also suggest you select only the required protocol for your speccific requirements as it is better from a security perspective.



  • @Yvan-Gagnon If your Omega can be accessed via IP address (like a dynamic one assigned by your internet Service Provider) and you just want a static name you can try http://changeip.com/dns.php for their Dynamic DNS. Some routers support them and can notify them when your IP address changes.



  • I'm going to need to give up on this whole port forwarding thing. I've spent a couple of hours fiddling with all the settings, rebooting my router multiple times, etc, and this just plain isn't working. I suspect that the issue is that my IP isn't actually static .. that it's actually DHCP assigned (even though it's remained unchanged for the past 4 months). I really just need something like ngrok that I can run directly on the Onion, but I guess I'm out of luck. Thanks for your help everyone. Have a great weekend.

    -- Yvan



  • @Yvan-Gagnon my ISP blocks 8080 since the Code Red worm Years ago. And uses dhcp as well. Dyndns works nicely.



  • @Yvan-Gagnon Yes @Ian-Smith many ISP block ports, some ISP here in Oz actually block most ports if you are on a residential plan. They don't want you hosting stuff unless you upgrade. If you do a port scan you can work out what ports are open and if you can use them.



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