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Is there any stand-alone open source version of the VS Code port forwarder? That’s what I really want. Not so much public access, just local access to ports on

Is there any stand-alone open source version of the VS Code port forwarder? That’s what I really want. Not so much public access, just local access to ports on the remote machine that I can easily manage. SSH port forwards don’t work inside docker dev environments (and docker containers have to be rebuilt to export new ports natively), so some extra software is needed.

SparkyMcUnicorn 3y ago
Using tailscale can solve this problem, and that's what I've opted to do since I was using tailscale already.
- CGamesPlay 3y ago
  A (potentially minor) problem with this use case for Tailscale is that we do actually want the forwarded services listening on localhost and not on a different IP address, because browsers treat these as secure contexts without having to fuss with https. I briefly checked the Tailscale userspace docs just now and it seems to expose a SOCKS proxy, meaning that we'd need an extra piece to listen on the desired localhost port and forward via Tailscale. [edit] Removed an incorrect assumption. Tailscale does not require CAP_NET_ADMIN in userspace mode.
  - SparkyMcUnicorn 3y ago
    You could also use MagicDNS with https[0], although that might not solve it the way you'd prefer. [0] https://tailscale.com/kb/1153/enabling-https https://tailscale.com/kb/1153/enabling-https
apitman 3y ago
I haven't tried vscode forwarding. What features does it have that are missing from most of the options on the list[0]? If you want a nice GUI for remote managing maybe check out one of my tools, boringproxy [0]: https://github.com/anderspitman/awesome-tunneling https://github.com/anderspitman/awesome-tunneling
- CGamesPlay 3y ago
  I've got your list saved in my notes :) The main thing is many of these are, well, ngrok alternatives: put my localhost on the internet. I am looking for something that puts remote ports into my local machine, and in particular which don't require configuring network interfaces (insecure to do in Docker containers) and don't require a centralized control plane.
  - apitman 3y ago
    Ah interesting. What's a typical use case for something like this? I could probably thing of a couple but I'm curious what people actually use it for.
    - CGamesPlay 3y ago
      Devcontainers in Docker. With Docker, you cannot add a port forward to an existing container; you have to rebuild the container. With devcontainers, this at a minimum requires a few minutes of rebuilding time (an excessive price to pay for changing a port forward).
      - apitman 3y ago
        So you have a devcontainer running on your local machine, and you start up a service inside it and want to access it from outside?
        CGamesPlay 3y ago
        Yes, that's the gist, although to complicate things I actually have the devcontainer running on a remote machine. So to access it I use `ssh host docker exec -it container`, for example. This is a supported workflow for VSCode remote devcontainers, and I would like to see an open-source version of it.

SparkyMcUnicorn 3y ago

Using tailscale can solve this problem, and that's what I've opted to do since I was using tailscale already.

CGamesPlay 3y ago
A (potentially minor) problem with this use case for Tailscale is that we do actually want the forwarded services listening on localhost and not on a different IP address, because browsers treat these as secure contexts without having to fuss with https. I briefly checked the Tailscale userspace docs just now and it seems to expose a SOCKS proxy, meaning that we'd need an extra piece to listen on the desired localhost port and forward via Tailscale. [edit] Removed an incorrect assumption. Tailscale does not require CAP_NET_ADMIN in userspace mode.
- SparkyMcUnicorn 3y ago
  You could also use MagicDNS with https[0], although that might not solve it the way you'd prefer. [0] https://tailscale.com/kb/1153/enabling-https https://tailscale.com/kb/1153/enabling-https

apitman 3y ago

I haven't tried vscode forwarding. What features does it have that are missing from most of the options on the list[0]? If you want a nice GUI for remote managing maybe check out one of my tools, boringproxy [0]: https://github.com/anderspitman/awesome-tunneling https://github.com/anderspitman/awesome-tunneling

CGamesPlay 3y ago
I've got your list saved in my notes :) The main thing is many of these are, well, ngrok alternatives: put my localhost on the internet. I am looking for something that puts remote ports into my local machine, and in particular which don't require configuring network interfaces (insecure to do in Docker containers) and don't require a centralized control plane.
- apitman 3y ago
  Ah interesting. What's a typical use case for something like this? I could probably thing of a couple but I'm curious what people actually use it for.
  - CGamesPlay 3y ago
    Devcontainers in Docker. With Docker, you cannot add a port forward to an existing container; you have to rebuild the container. With devcontainers, this at a minimum requires a few minutes of rebuilding time (an excessive price to pay for changing a port forward).
    - apitman 3y ago
      So you have a devcontainer running on your local machine, and you start up a service inside it and want to access it from outside?
      - CGamesPlay 3y ago
        Yes, that's the gist, although to complicate things I actually have the devcontainer running on a remote machine. So to access it I use `ssh host docker exec -it container`, for example. This is a supported workflow for VSCode remote devcontainers, and I would like to see an open-source version of it.