Proxy and tunnels

Tunnels: publish a local service without opening ports

Expose an HTTP service from your computer or local network on an HTTPS subdomain, without port forwarding or a public IP: an alternative to ngrok and Cloudflare Tunnel.

When to use it

Tunnels suit homelabs, NAS devices, development environments or services behind a router without a public IP. The NorthTunnel agent opens an outbound connection to NorthDNS: no router ports need to be opened.

1. Create the tunnel

Open the domain → Tunnel, choose the public hostname (e.g. nas.example.com) and the service’s local port. NorthDNS creates the DNS record and the HTTPS route automatically.

2. Save the key

An API key starting with api- is shown. Copy it now: it will not be shown again. If you lose it, regenerate it from the same page.

3. Install the agent

On a machine that can reach the service, install the agent as a service with one command. On Linux it creates a systemd service with a dedicated user, on macOS a login agent:

curl -fsSL https://northdns.it/install/tunnel.sh | sudo sh -s -- api-YOUR_KEY

On Windows, in PowerShell as Administrator:

$env:NORTHDNS_API_KEY="api-YOUR_KEY"; irm https://northdns.it/install/tunnel.ps1 | iex

For a quick test you can also download the agent from the tunnel page and run it in the foreground with northtunnel --api api-YOUR_KEY. The status on the page turns Online in real time as soon as the agent connects.

Management

You can change the hostname and local port at any time.
Regenerating the key disconnects the current agent.
Deleting the tunnel also removes its DNS record and route.

Security

The service becomes public on the Internet: protect it with its own authentication and, if needed, with proxy rules or under-attack mode.