Let it out!

Overview

Let it out makes it easier to quickly expose your local services to the internet without messing with inlets server tokens, and DNS records.

While we just automate the DNS management on your CloudFlare account and the inlets command, all the tunneling magic comes from inlets itself. You're still required to have an exit server up and running in order to expose it to the internet.

Requirements

• Inlets inlets executable installed on your machine
• One or more exit server installed
• A domain managed by CloudFlare

Exit servers

You can use any system you want to run exit servers if they are publicly accessible.

The easiest way to do it is using inletsctl to create an exit server, but if you want a quick and easy setup on a provider not supported by inletsctl, here it is how you can do it on a fresh Ubuntu machine (adjust as needed):

• Install inlets
  • sudo curl -sLS https://get.inlets.dev | sudo sh
  • sudo curl -sLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/inlets/inlets/master/hack/inlets-operator.service
  • sudo mv inlets-operator.service /etc/systemd/system/inlets.service
  • echo AUTHTOKEN=$(head -c 16 /dev/urandom | shasum | cut -d" " -f1) > ~/inlets
  • echo CONTROLPORT=8000 >> ~/inlets
  • sudo mv ~/inlets /etc/default/inlets
  • sudo systemctl start inlets
  • sudo systemctl enable inlets
• Grab your token
  • source /etc/default/inlets
  • echo $AUTHTOKEN

Installation

TODO:

Configuration

To run let it out you need a configuration file that has your domains and exit servers.

The configuration is done through a .letitout.yml file that can be placed in your home directory or the current working directory when you run letitout. If the file is found in the current working directory, it takes priority over the file placed on your home folder.

Example contents

cloudflare:
  mydomain.com:
    token: <your_cloudflare_token_with_edit_zone_permission>

  anotherdomain.com:
    token: <another_cloudflare_token_with_edit_zone_permission>

servers:
  my_digitalocean_vps:
    address: 123.123.123.123:8000
    token: <the_digitalocean_exit_server_token>

  some_aws_vps:
    address: 213.213.213.213:8000
    token: <the_aws_exit_server_token>

  some_random_place:
    address: 222.222.222.222:8000
    token: <the_token_on_random_place>

projects:
  apache:
    server: my_digitalocean_vps
    hostname: sub.mydomain.com
    upstream: http://127.0.0.1:80

  my_vue_frontend:
    server: some_aws_vps
    hostname: project2.anotherdomain.com
    upstream: http://127.0.0.1:3000

You can configure any number of domains, servers and projects in the configuration file. You just need to make sure projects references a valid exit server. If the hostname cannot be found under CloudFlare section, the DNS management will be skipped.

Running

You can quickly expose your projects by running letitout <project_name> command.

For example, using the example configuration file, running letitout apache will create an A record sub.mydomain.com that points to the DigitalOcean machine IP. Note that these records have CloudFlare proxy enabled by default.

If the exit server IP is an IPv6 address, the record is created as an AAAA type.

Quickly (temporarily) changing settings

If you want to quickly change the hostname, the target server, or the upstream service without editing the configuration file, you can specify it using --hostname <host>, --server <server> or --upstream <upstream>.

Examples

These examples assumes a configuration like this:

Server:

• server1 at address 111.111.111.111
• server2 at address 222.222.222.222

Domains:

• domain1.com
• ddomain2.com

Projects:

• project1 on upstream http://localhost:8000 with domain project.domain1.com
• project2 on upstream http://localhost:3000 with domain project.domain2.com

Expose project1

Command

letitout project1

Result

• Creates an A DNS record project.domain1.com pointing to 111.111.111.111
• Tunnels http://localhost:8000 to server1, accessible through https://project.domain1.com

Expose project2

Command

letitout project2

Result

• Creates an A DNS record project.domain2.com pointing to 222.222.222.222
• Tunnels http://localhost:3000 to server2, accessible through https://project.domain1.com

Expose project1 on hey.domain2.com

Command

letitout project1 --hostname hey.domain2.com

Result

• Creates an A DNS record hey.domain2.com pointing to 111.111.111.111
• Tunnels http://localhost:3000 to server1, accessible through https://hey.domain2.com

Backlog

Complete

• Backup DNS record into a TXT record
• Create DNS record pointing to Exit server address
• Support multiple servers, projects and domains

Pending

• Rollback DNS changed based on TXT backups on exit or command
• Support more DNS providers

License

MIT