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lan-tunnel

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Readme

lan-tunnel

🖇Library for exposing server from local network to the internet.

Why

When you need to access your raspberry pi or a automation hub from the internet, but port forwarding or public IP is not an option.

How it works

Consists of two parts:

Proxy server
Forwards incoming internet requests through a tunnel to your LAN.
Needs to be run on your own server accessible from the internet, VPS or something like heroku.
Client
Is run from within your LAN.
It serves as a glue between your app and the proxy by opening a pool of keep-alive sockets connection both and passes
Can be a part of your app or a separate process.

Your app (web server) doesn't need to change. It just responds to its usual port.

TL;DR

          PROXY SERVER         TUNNEL         LAN APP
 available on internet    exposes the app     inaccessible from internet
 at https://you.com:80   through tunnelPort   at http://localhost:80
                    |                          |
                    |                          | Your app connects to proxy
                    | <----------------------- | and opens keep-alive tunnel
                    |                          | sockets for handling requests
                    |                          |
    GET request     |                          |
you.com/index.html  |   pass request to app    |
------------------> |   localhost/index.html   |
                    | -----------------------> |
                    |                          | Your app serves /index.html
    proxy serves    |   pass /index.html back  |
    /index.html     | <----------------------- |
<------------------ |                          |
                    |                          |

Installation

npm install lan-tunnel

Usage

Check out the extended example.

Proxy server running on the remote machine

import {createProxyServer} from 'lan-tunnel'

createProxyServer({
  // Port where you can access the app from internet
  proxyPort: 80,
  // Internal port for communicating between the proxy and your local app
  tunnelPort: 8010,
  // OPTIONAL: Certificate to make the server HTTPS instead of simple HTTP.
  key:  fs.readFileSync('../../ssl.key'),
  cert: fs.readFileSync('../../ssl.cert'),
  // OPTIONAL: Encryption of TCP tunnels
  tunnelEncryption: {
    key: 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEF',
    iv: '1234567890123456',
    cipher: 'aes-256-ctr',
  },
})

Client side running in your local network

import {connectToProxy} from 'lan-tunnel'

// Include this in your app, or run separately
connectToProxy({
  // The internet proxy server at which the app will be exposed
  tunnelHost: 'your-proxy-server.com',
  tunnelPort: 8010,
  // Your app
  appPort: 8080
  // OPTIONAL: Encryption of TCP tunnels
  tunnelEncryption: {...}
})

// your typical web server listening on the appPort.
const app = express()
app.listen(8080)

Client code can also run standalone on a different machine if you define appHost.

License

MIT, Mike Kovařík, Mutiny.cz