ngrok Agent Configuration File

Overview

The ngrok agent supports an optional, YAML configuration file which provides you with the power to run multiple tunnels simultaneously as well as to tweak some of its more advanced settings.

Default Locations

The default location of the ngrok agent's configuration file varies based on your operating system. The easiest way to find the configuration file location is to run:

ngrok config check

which will validate and print the location of the configuration file.

For the main operating systems we support, their default file locations are:

• Linux: ~/.config/ngrok/ngrok.yml
• MacOS (Darwin): ~/Library/Application Support/ngrok/ngrok.yml
• Windows: "%HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\ngrok\ngrok.yml"

Config File Merging

The --config flag in the ngrok command allows you to specify one or more ngrok configuration files to merge when starting the ngrok agent. The rules for merging are as follows:

• Values from later configs override those from earlier configs. For example, if config1.yml and config2.yml both set api_key, then calling ngrok http --config config1.yml,config2.yml 80 will use the api_key from config2.yml.
• Lists are overwritten using the last value.
• Maps, including the tunnels map, are merged by key and in the case of a duplicate key, the latter value is taken.

Full Example

Below is an example configuration file with all the options filled in.

authtoken: 4nq9771bPxe8ctg7LKr_2ClH7Y15Zqe4bWLWF9p
api_key: 24yRd5U3DestCQapJrrVHLOqiAC_7RviwRqpd3wc9dKLujQZN
connect_timeout: 30s
console_ui: true
console_ui_color: transparent
dns_resolver_ips:
  - 1.1.1.1
  - 8.8.8.8
heartbeat_interval: 1m
heartbeat_tolerance: 5s
inspect_db_size: 104857600 # 100mb
inspect_db_size: 50000000
log_level: info
log_format: json
log: /var/log/ngrok.log
metadata: '{"serial": "00012xa-33rUtz9", "comment": "For customer alan@example.com"}'
proxy_url: socks5://localhost:9150
remote_management: false
root_cas: trusted
update_channel: stable
update_check: false
version: 2
web_addr: localhost:4040
tunnels:
  website:
    addr: 8888
    basic_auth:
      - "bob:bobpassword"
    schemes:
      - https
    host_header: "myapp.ngrok.dev"
    inspect: false
    proto: http
    domain: myapp.ngrok.dev

  e2etls:
    addr: 9000
    proto: tls
    domain: myapp.example.com
    crt: example.crt
    key: example.key

  policyenforced:
    policy:
      inbound:
        - name: LimitIPs
          expressions:
            - "conn.client_ip != '1.1.1.1'"
          actions:
            - type: deny
    addr: 8000
    proto: tcp

  ssh-access:
    addr: 22
    proto: tcp
    remote_addr: 1.tcp.ngrok.io:12345

  my-load-balanced-website:
    labels:
      - env=prod
      - team=infra
    addr: 8000

Tunnel configurations

The most common use of the configuration file is to define tunnel configurations. Defining tunnel configurations is useful because you may then start pre-configured tunnels by name from your command line without remembering all of the right arguments every time. You may also use this method to start as many tunnels as you like from a single ngrok agent.

Tunnels are defined as mapping of name -> configuration under the tunnels property in your configuration file.

Define two tunnels named 'httpbin' and 'demo'

tunnels:
  httpbin:
    proto: http
    addr: 8000
    domain: alan-httpbin.ngrok.dev
  demo:
    proto: http
    addr: 9090
    domain: demo.inconshreveable.com
    inspect: false

Start the tunnel named 'httpbin'

ngrok start httpbin

Each tunnel you define is a map of configuration option names to values. The name of a configuration option is usually the same as its corresponding command line switch with hyphens (--host-header becomes host_header: in the configuration file and --scheme becomes schemes). Tunnels can define a specific proto or use labels to dynamically connect to one or more matching ngrok Edges. All tunnels must define a specific addr that tells the agent where to send the traffic. Other properties are available and many are protocol-specific.

Start all tunnels defined in the configuration file

ngrok start --all

You can configure a single ngrok agent to tunnel to multiple services within a single agent session.

Common Tunnel Configuration Properties

addr	required	forward traffic to this local port number or network address. This can be just a port
metadata	Optional	arbitrary user-defined metadata that will appear in the ngrok service API when listing tunnel sessions

HTTP Configuration

basic_auth	Array of username:password Strings	This is a list of username:password combinations to use for basic authenticate. Passwords must be at least 8 characters long.
circuit_breaker	Float	Reject requests when 5XX responses exceed this ratio
compression	true, false	gzip compress HTTP responses from your web service
host_header	rewrite, preserve, custom	Rewrite the HTTP Host header to this value, or preserve to leave it unchanged. The rewrite option will rewrite the host header to match the hostname of the upstream service you are sending traffic to.
domain	Any valid domain or hostname that you have previously registered with ngrok.	The domain to request. If using a custom domain, this requires registering in the ngrok dashboard and setting a DNS CNAME value. When using wildcard domains you will need to surround the value with single quotes (domain: '*.example.com').
inspect	true, false	enable/disable the http request inspection in the web and agent API (default: true)
ip_restriction.allow_cidrs	Array of CIDRs	Rejects connections that do not match the given CIDRs
ip_restriction.deny_cidrs	Array of CIDRs	Rejects connections that match the given CIDRs and allows all other CIDRs.
mutual_tls_cas	Valid system path	The path to the TLS certificate authority to verify client certs in mutual TLS
oauth.allow_domains	Array of Strings	Allow only OAuth2 users with these email domains
oauth.allow_emails	Array of Strings	Allow only OAuth users with these emails
oauth.oauth_scopes	Array of Strings	Request these OAuth2 scopes when a user authenticates
oauth.provider	String	enforce authentication OAuth2 provider on the endpoint, e.g. 'google'. For a lit of available providers, see OAuth2 providers.
policy.inbound.name	String	The name of an inbound rule that is part of a traffic policy
policy.inbound.expressions	Array of Strings	Expressions written using CEL that filter traffic the inbound policy rule applies to
policy.inbound.actions.type	String	The type of action that should be executed when this inbound policy rule is activated
policy.inbound.actions.config	custom	The configuration required for the specific type of action specified
policy.outbound.name	String	The name of an outbound rule that is part of a traffic policy
policy.outbound.expressions	Array of Strings	Expressions written using CEL that filter traffic the outbound policy rule applies to
policy.outbound.actions.type	String	The type of action that should be executed when this outbound policy rule is activated
policy.outbound.actions.config	custom	The configuration required for the specific type of action specified
proto	http	The tunnel protocol name. This defines the type of tunnel you would like to start.
proxy_proto	String	The version of PROXY protocol to use with this tunnel, empty if not using. Example values are 1 or 2.
request_header.add	Array of key:value Strings	The headers to add to the request in the key:value format.
request_header.remove	Array of Strings	The header keys to remove from the request.
response_header.add	Array of Strings	The headers to add to the response in the key:value format.
response_header.remove	Array of Strings	The header keys to remove from the response.
schemes	http, https	Create an HTTP or HTTPS endpoint (or both)
subdomain	Any valid combination of letters, numbers, hyphens or periods.	subdomain name to request. If unspecified, ngrok provides a unique subdomain based on your account type.
user_agent_filter.allow	Array of Strings	Allows User-Agents that match against these RE2 Regular Expressions
user_agent_filter.deny	Array of Strings	Denies User-Agents that match against these RE2 Regular Expressions
verify_webhook.provider	String	Verify webhooks are signed by this provider, e.g. 'slack'. For a full list of providers, see Webhook Verification Providers.
verify_webhook.secret	String	The secret used by provider to sign webhooks, if there is one
websocket_tcp_converter	true, false	Convert ingress websocket connections to TCP upstream

TCP Configuration

ip_restriction.allow_cidrs	Array of CIDRs	Rejects connections that do not match the given CIDRs
ip_restriction.deny_cidrs	Array of CIDRs	Rejects connections that match the given CIDRs and allows all other CIDRs.
policy.inbound.name	String	The name of an inbound rule that is part of a traffic policy
policy.inbound.expressions	Array of Strings	Expressions written using CEL that filter traffic the inbound policy rule applies to
policy.inbound.actions.type	String	The type of action that should be executed when this inbound policy rule is activated
policy.inbound.actions.config	custom	The configuration required for the specific type of action specified
policy.outbound.name	String	The name of an outbound rule that is part of a traffic policy
policy.outbound.expressions	Array of Strings	Expressions written using CEL that filter traffic the outbound policy rule applies to
policy.outbound.actions.type	String	The type of action that should be executed when this outbound policy rule is activated
policy.outbound.actions.config	custom	The configuration required for the specific type of action specified
proto	tcp	The tunnel protocol name. This defines the type of tunnel you would like to start.
proxy_proto	String	The version of PROXY protocol to use with this tunnel, empty if not using. Example values are 1 or 2.
remote_addr	A valid TCP address from ngrok	bind the remote TCP address and port. These addresses can be reserved in the ngrok dashboard to use across sessions. For example: remote_addr: 2.tcp.ngrok.io:21746

TLS Configuration

mutual_tls_cas	Valid system path	The path to the TLS certificate authority to verify client certs for mutual TLS. You will also need to specify key and crt to enable mutual TLS.
crt	Valid system path	PEM TLS certificate at this path to terminate TLS traffic before forwarding locally. Requires --key to also be specified.
domain	Any valid domain or hostname that you have previously registered with ngrok.	The domain to request. If using a custom domain, this requires registering in the ngrok Dashboard and setting a DNS CNAME value. When using wildcard domains you will need to surround the value with single quotes (domain: '*.example.com').
ip_restriction.allow_cidrs	Array of CIDRs	Rejects connections that do not match the given CIDRs
ip_restriction.deny_cidrs	Array of CIDRs	Rejects connections that match the given CIDRs and allows all other CIDRs.
key	Valid system path	PEM TLS private key at this path to terminate TLS traffic before forwarding locally. Requires --crt to also be specified.
policy.inbound.name	String	The name of an inbound rule that is part of a traffic policy
policy.inbound.expressions	Array of Strings	Expressions written using CEL that filter traffic the inbound policy rule applies to
policy.inbound.actions.type	String	The type of action that should be executed when this inbound policy rule is activated
policy.inbound.actions.config	custom	The configuration required for the specific type of action specified
policy.outbound.name	String	The name of an outbound rule that is part of a traffic policy
policy.outbound.expressions	Array of Strings	Expressions written using CEL that filter traffic the outbound policy rule applies to
policy.outbound.actions.type	String	The type of action that should be executed when this outbound policy rule is activated
policy.outbound.actions.config	custom	The configuration required for the specific type of action specified
proto	tls	The tunnel protocol name. This defines the type of tunnel you would like to start.
proxy_proto	String	The version of PROXY protocol to use with this tunnel, empty if not using. Example values are 1 or 2.
subdomain	Any valid combination of letters, numbers, hyphens or periods.	subdomain name to request. If unspecified, ngrok provides a unique subdomain based on your account type.
terminate_at	edge, agent, or upstream	Terminate at ngrok edge, agent, or upstream. Defaults to upstream unless --crt or --key are present, in which case edge is the default.

Labeled Tunnel Configuration

crt	Valid system path	The path to a TLS certificate when doing TLS termination at the agent.
inspect	true, false	enable/disable the http request inspection in the web and agent API (default: true)
key	Valid system path	The path to a TLS key when doing TLS termination at the agent.
labels	A list of labels (name=value) that can be used to identify a tunnel to an ngrok Edge (specifically a tunnel group backend).	The labels for this tunnel in the format name=value. For example: edge=edghts_2gYaK9XAVa3ANouaDEPrkeaxkYT

Define two labeled tunnels

tunnels:
  my-cool-website:
    labels:
      - env=prod
      - team=infra
    addr: 8000
    inspect: false
  ssh-tunnel:
    labels:
      - hostname=my-hostname
      - service=ssh
      - team=development
    addr: 22

tip

When you use labeled tunnels, the protocol and domain are configured by the matching edge.

tip

Edges automatically create an edge label, for example: edge=edghts_2gYaK9XAVa3ANouaDEPrkeaxkYT

Global Configuration

The following is a list of options that can be configured at the root of your configuration file and specify the behavior of the agent.

Name	Description
api_key	Specifies the ngrok API key used to connect to the ngrok API. This is only needed when using the ngrok api command and should not be confused with the authtoken.
authtoken	Specifies the authentication token (authtoken) used to connect to the ngrok service.
connect_interface	Set the specific network interface for ngrok to use. This is only supported on Linux platforms.
connect_timeout	How long to wait when establishing an agent session connection to the ngrok service. The default is 10s.
console_ui	Enable/disable the console UI
console_ui_color	Set the background color of the console UI
crl_noverify	Disables verifying Certificate Revocation List
dns_resolver_ips	Consult these DNS servers for tunnel session DNS resolution.
heartbeat_interval	How often the ngrok agent should heartbeat to the ngrok servers defined as a duration. Default is 10s.
heartbeat_tolerance	Reconnect the agent tunnel session if the server does not respond to a heartbeat within this tolerance defined as a duration. Default is 15s.
inspect_db_size	The size in bytes of the upper limit on memory to allocate to save requests over HTTP tunnels for inspection and replay.
log_level	Logging level of detail. In increasing order of verbosity, possible values are:
log_format	Format of written log records.
log	Write logs to this target destination.
metadata	Opaque, user-supplied string that will be returned as part of the ngrok API response to the list online sessions resource for all tunnels started by this agent.
proxy_url	URL of an HTTP or SOCKS5 proxy to use for establishing the tunnel connection.
region (Deprecated)	Choose the region where the ngrok agent will connect to host its tunnels.
remote_management	Set this to true to allow the ngrok agent to be remotely managed (stop, restart, update). Defaults to true.
root_cas	The root certificate authorities used to validate the TLS connection to the ngrok server.
server_addr	This is the URL of the ngrok server to connect to. You should only set this if you are using a custom ingress URL.
tunnels	A map of names to tunnel definitions. See tunnel definitions for more details.
update_channel	The update channel determines the stability of released builds to update to. Use stable for all production deployments.
update_check	This tells the ngrok agent if it should check for updates. Defaults to true.
version	Specifies the version of the config file to use.
web_addr	Network address to bind on for serving the local web interface and api.
web_allow_hosts	Host headers to allow access for on the local web interface and api, can be a combination of IP's, CIDR ranges, and/or hostname suffixes.

api_key

This option specifies the API key used to access the ngrok API through the ngrok api command. This is only needed when using the ngrok API and not the local ngrok agent API (available at localhost:4040/api). You can generate an API Key in the ngrok Dashboard and install it using the ngrok config add-api-key command.

ngrok.yml specifying an API key

api_key: 24yRd5U3DestCQapJrrVHLOqiAC_7RviwRqpd3wc9dKLujQZN

authtoken

This option specifies the authentication token (sometimes called tunnel credential) used to authenticate this agent when it connects to the ngrok service. After you've created an ngrok account, your dashboard will display the authtoken assigned to your account.

Your authtoken will work on multiple machines if you are just developing. When you want to deploy many agents on many devices, you can generate a unique authtoken for each device in the ngrok Dashboard or via the ngrok api credentials command.

ngrok.yml specifying an authtoken

authtoken: 4nq9771bPxe8ctg7LKr_2ClH7Y15Zqe4bWLWF9p

connect_interface

Sets the specific network interface that the ngrok agent should use. This is only supported on Linux platforms.

connect_timeout

How long to wait when establishing an agent session connection to the ngrok service. This is specified as a duration, with the default being 10s.

console_ui

This option allows you to enable or disable the console UI that is displayed in your terminal window after starting ngrok.

true		Enable the console UI
false		Disable the console UI
iftty	default	Enable the UI only if standard out is a TTY (not a file or pipe)

console_ui_color

The command sets the background color when displaying the console UI in the terminal. To choose a color other than black, set the value to transparent and change the background of your terminal window.

transparent		Don't set a background color when displaying the console UI
black	default	Set the console UI's background to black

crl_noverify

This option will skip verifying with the Certificate Revocation List if set to true. This defaults to false.

dns_resolver_ips

Consult these DNS servers for tunnel session DNS resolution. By default, the ngrok agent will use the local system DNS servers to resolve.

heartbeat_interval

How often the ngrok agent should heartbeat to the ngrok servers defined as a duration. The default is 10s.

heartbeat_tolerance

Reconnect the agent tunnel session if the server does not respond to a heartbeat within this tolerance defined as a duration. The default is 15s.

inspect_db_size

This is the upper limit in bytes on memory to allocate when saving requests over HTTP tunnels for inspection and reply. The default is 0, which means 50MB.

positive integers		size in bytes of the upper limit on memory to allocate to save requests over HTTP tunnels for inspection and replay.
0	default	use the default allocation limit, 50MB
-1		disable the inspection database; this has the effective behavior of disabling inspection for all tunnels

log_level

This is the logging level of detail. In increasing order of verbosity, possible values are: crit, warn, error, info, and debug.

log_format

This is the format of written log records.

logfmt		human and machine friendly key/value pairs
json		newline-separated JSON objects
term	default	custom colored human format if standard out is a TTY, otherwise same as logfmt

log

This is the destination where ngrok should write the logs.

stdout		write to standard out
stderr		write to standard error
false	default	disable logging
other values		write log records to file path on disk

log: /var/log/ngrok.log

metadata

This is a user-supplied custom string that will be returned as part of the ngrok API response to the list online sessions resource for all tunnels started by this agent. This is a useful mechanism to identify tunnels by your own device or customer identifier. Maximum 4096 characters.

metadata: bad8c1c0-8fce-11e4-b4a9-0800200c9a66

proxy_url

This is the URL of an HTTP or SOCKS5 proxy to use for establishing the tunnel connection. Many HTTP proxies have connection size and duration limits that will cause ngrok to fail. Like many other networking tools, ngrok will also respect the environment variable http_proxy and http_proxy_env if it is set.

region

Deprecated This is the region where the ngrok agent will connect to. You can only choose one region per agent session. Choosing the region closest to you usually improves latency and performance. By default, the ngrok agent attempts to choose the best region for you.

Region Code	Region Name
ap	Asia/Pacific (Singapore)
au	Australia (Sydney)
eu	Europe (Frankfurt)
in	India (Mumbai)
jp	Japan (Tokyo)
sa	South America (São Paulo)
us	United States (Ohio)
us-cal-1	United States (California)

remote_management

Set this to true to allow the ngrok agent to be remotely managed (stop, restart, update) via the ngrok API or the ngrok Dashboard. Defaults to true.

root_cas

This is the root certificate authorities used to validate the TLS connection to the ngrok server.

trusted	default	use only the trusted certificate root for the ngrok.com tunnel service
host		use the root certificates trusted by the host's operating system. This is helpful for working with machine-in-the-middle (MITM) proxies doing deep packet inspection (DPI).
other values		path to a certificate PEM file on disk with certificate authorities to trust

server_addr

This is the URL of the ngrok server to connect to. You should set this if you are using a custom ingress URL.

tunnels

This is a map of names to tunnel definitions. See tunnel definitions for more details.

update_channel

The update channel determines the stability of released builds to update to. Use 'stable' for all production deployments.

stable	default	These are builds that are ready to be used in production.
unstable		update to new nightly builds when available which could be broken. This should not be used in production.
beta		update to new beta builds when available which could be broken. This should not be used in production.

update_check

This tells the ngrok agent if it should check for updates. Defaults to true.

version

Specifies the version of the config file to use.

web_addr

This is the network address to bind on for serving the local agent web interface and API.

Network address		Bind to this network address
127.0.0.1:4040	default	default network address
false		disable the web UI

web_allow_hosts

These are a list of specifiers for what Host headers will be allowed to make requests agains the local agent web interface and API. Any port is stripped off the Host header before matching is performed.

Allow string		Example Host headers that would match
	default	requests to localhost-bound web interface or API endpoints are checked to have a localhost-like Host (localhost, 127.0.0.1, ::1, etc.)
8.8.8.8		an IP matches Host header (8.8.8.8)
1:2:3:4:5:6:7:8		an IPv6 matches Host header (1:2:3:4:5:6:7:8)
10.0.0.0/8		a CIDR range matches a Host header that is an IP address in that range (10.0.0.1 or 10.1.2.3)
1:2:3:4:5:6:7:8/16		a CIDR range matches a Host header that is an IPv6 address in that range (1:2:3:4:5:6:7:0)
example.com		a hostname without preceding period will match Host header exactly (example.com)
.example.com		a hostname with a preceding period Host header suffix (sub.example.com or foo.example.com)

Allow an IP address and a Domain as Host headers

web_allow_hosts:
  - 8.8.8.8
  - example.com