ngrok is awesome. If you download it from https://ngrok.com/download and follow the instructions, you’ll still need to run in your terminal:
$ ./ngrok http {portNumber}
from the folder that you have the file unzipped in. I unzipped it in ~/Downlaods folder (for no specific reason).
Here’s the trick to make this more efficient. You can use alias in your terminal.
Example:
~$ alias ddd='cd ~/Downloads'
Then, when you run ddd anywhere in your terminal, the alias means that bash will actually run cd ~/Downloads, changing directory to the Downloads folder.
The trick is to chain commands so that, whenever you type ngrok command in your terminal, it’ll go to /Downloads and run ./ngrok command.
And we want this permanently. So, we’ll need to write the alias in the .bash_profile file.
Let’s do this.
Open a terminal and in your home folder open the .bash_profile file, you can use nano:
~$ nano .bash_profile
Add the following line to your bash profile:
## ngrok alias
alias ngrok='cd ~/Downloads/ && ./ngrok'
and save it (if you are using nano, hit control+X and then Y).
Then, source the file:
~$ source .bash_profile
You’re good to go! To test, go adhead and type ngrok http 3000 to open a tunnel on port 3000 from your localhost. Or any other ngrok command. See (ngrok docs)[https://ngrok.com/docs].