In this post, we are gonna tell you how to use install Ngrok in Kali Linux, this guide will be a step by step tutorial so that you can easily understand and use ngrok in your kali machine
Before you start using the Ngrok service, you must know what is ngrok and its working principles also its benefits
what is ngrok
Ngrok is a service that enables developers to share their work over a secured tunnelling channel, it is most useful for Web developers to showcase their work with other team members directly from their local machine, which saves our time of hosting the web app on some costly server before the testing and deployment phase
what is ngrok used for
As per Ngrok’s Official statement, Ngrok is used for exposing the local web server over the internet without exposing your real IP address, before using ngrok service you must be aware of your local machine’s port must be listening on a specific port defined by you, Ngrrok is useful at sharing the websites hosted on your localhost to the real-world internet, sometimes its useful at hackathons, but some bad guys use it for some malicious activities which we are not talking that here
Install Ngrok In Kali Linux
Installing ngrok in Kali Linux is not so hard but it requires some patience, The installation process is very easy, you just have to follow the below steps carefully
Step1: Signup for an account at ngrok.com
The signup process takes a few minutes, you can log in with a Github or Google account too
Step2: After signup, you have to download the Ngrok setup file compatible with your Linux Distro, goto https://ngrok.com/download
Download the ngrok compatible to your Linux Processor, Most of the time the website will select the compatible version to your system
You can download the file using Wget, which is preferred by most Linux users, for that right-click on the download button and copy the link and use wget to download the file
eg:
wget https://bin.equinox.io/c/4VmDzA7iaHb/ngrok-stable-linux-amd64.zip
Step 3:
After downloading it unzip it using the unzip or any other zip extractor, most Linux distros unzip is installed by default, if not then you can install it by sudo apt-get install unzip command, to unzip the file type the command
unzip ngrok-stable-linux-amd64.zip
Step 4:
After unzipping you will see a file named ngrok, Now you need an auth token to get started with ngrok, for that login to ngrok dashboard ( https://dashboard.ngrok.com) and then click on Your Authtoken On that page you will see your auth token like this
copy the command line full text and paste on the terminal, remember you have to paste the command on the terminal ./ngrok authtoken your-auth-token where you have unzipped the ngrok file
Step 5:
Now everything is set up and you have to test it, for that I have started a simple HTTP server by typing the below command
./ngrok http 80
Now Ngrok is successfully installed and running in our Kali Linux machine, before complaining about ngrok not connecting, you must be aware that your machine must be listening for the port specified earlier,
In this case, I have started the Apache server on my machine by typing
sudo service apache2 start
And Opened both localhost IP and the ngrok URL
In the ngrok local URL, I was able to observe the incoming requests and responses of my webserver, while the ngrok subdomain URL is able to serve the web pages
Final Words
Hope you have learnt how to set up ngrok in Kali Linux, One more bonus tip is, if you want to make the ngrok work globally on the terminal then move the ngrok file to /usr/local/bin/
