Ports and port forwarding

The Ports tab shows every port your computer has listening, and lets you forward one to a public HTTPS URL through a tunnel, without giving the machine a public IP or opening any inbound port 🌐

How port forwarding works

The daemon on your computer dials out to an idapt proxy, and the proxy serves your port to the internet on the computer's behalf. Because the connection is outbound, nothing has to listen for the internet on your machine, and no firewall hole is needed.

The public URL sits behind idapt authentication, so a random visitor cannot reach your service. Your local app only needs to be listening on 127.0.0.1.

Forward a port

You can forward a port two ways:

From the computer's Ports tab, enter the port and choose who can reach it.
From the machine, with the daemon CLI:
```
idapt-computer expose 3000
```

The port becomes available at a stable URL of the shape:

https://3000--<computer-id>.idapt.computer

The <computer-id>is your computer's permanent id, so the URL stays the same each time you forward that port.

Choose who can reach it

A forwarded port is authenticated by default. You pick how wide the audience is:

Computer owner only: only you, the owner.
Workspace members: members of the workspace you share the computer with.
Public: anyone on the internet, with no idapt sign-in. This is a separate, deliberate step (see below).

Making a port public

Public forwarding removes the sign-in wall entirely, so anyone on the internet can reach the port. It is available on a paid plan, it always expires (you choose the window, up to seven days), and an agent can only propose it: a person confirms every public grant.

Only make a port public for a service you intend to be world-reachable. If a public port runs a vulnerable process, the whole computer, and everything on it, can be reached by anyone. When in doubt, keep it private or workspace-only.

Close a forwarded port

A forwarded port stays open until you close it. Close it from the computer's Ports tab, or from the machine:

idapt-computer unexpose 3000

Forwarding a port is not a shell

Forwarding a port serves web traffic. It does not give anyone a command line on the machine. Opening a terminal is a separate feature with its own control. See Terminal and SSH.

If the URL will not load, check that your app is actually listening on 127.0.0.1 at that port, and that the computer is online.

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