Tunnel a localhost subdirectory through ngrok?

Question

Objective: want to share a website preview using ngrok, which creates a tunnel from which my localhost can be seen with an url of something like mywebsite.ngrok.io

Problem: I use WAMP and my localhost folder looks something like this:

localhostdirectory    |-- website1    |-- website2    |-- etc 

To access a website I type to localhost/website1/ in the browser, I would like to tunnel only that URL, the possible solutions would be:

1. Setting up a Virtual host, I would go through the hassle of manually setting up a virtual host, then I get something like website1.dev, and then I would pass it to ngrok as the host header in the HTTP request, like that:

   ngrok http -host-header=website1.dev 80 

   I didn't understand what the host header is though, and why can't I pass a relative url like localhost/website1/, also what is the rewrite option?

2. Change the folder directory of my localhost to the folder of the website, I would prefer not to do that.

Is there a better way to accomplish my objective in an easier way, maybe going through WAMP aliases?

Answer 1

If you make do with Apache Vhost you just have to exec command

ngrok http -host-header=rewrite YOUR-LOCAL-DOMAIN:PORT

Dont forgot to edit host file for resolution @IP <-> YOUR-LOCAL-DOMAIN

Answer 2

I tried below way.

When I ran $ ./ngrok http 80 ngrok listen to localhost:80 which shows dashboard because apache server is running on port 80. Then I tried running subfolder in another port, which solved problem. Assume you have project in xyz and want ngrok should points it. Then do following

$ cd /opt/lampp/htdocs/xyz $ php -S localhost:8080 

Here 8080 is any unused port. localhost:8080 direct points to xyz and then open other terminal

$ ./ngrok http 8080

By doing this ngrok will listen to 8080 port were your xyz is running.

Hope this helps!!