rustunnel Quickstart — expose localhost in three steps

This quickstart takes you from nothing to a live public URL for your local service in three steps: install the rustunnel client, get an auth token, and open a tunnel. The same steps work against the managed cloud at rustunnel.com or your own self-hosted server.

Step 1 — Install the client

macOS and Linux (Homebrew)

brew tap joaoh82/rustunnel
brew install rustunnel

This installs both rustunnel (the CLI client) and rustunnel-mcp (the MCP server for AI agent integration). No Rust toolchain required.

Pre-built binary

Download the archive for your platform from the latest GitHub Release, extract it, and move the binary onto your $PATH.

Platform	Archive
macOS Apple Silicon	`rustunnel-<version>-aarch64-apple-darwin.tar.gz`
macOS Intel	`rustunnel-<version>-x86_64-apple-darwin.tar.gz`
Linux x86_64 (glibc)	`rustunnel-<version>-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz`
Linux x86_64 (musl)	`rustunnel-<version>-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz`
Linux arm64	`rustunnel-<version>-aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz`
Windows x86_64	`rustunnel-<version>-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip`

Build from source

Requires Rust 1.76 or later.

git clone https://github.com/joaoh82/rustunnel.git
cd rustunnel
cargo build --release -p rustunnel-client
sudo install -Dm755 target/release/rustunnel /usr/local/bin/rustunnel

Verify the installation:

rustunnel --version

Step 2 — Get an auth token

Access to the hosted service requires an auth token. Create a free account and generate one yourself.

Create a free account

Generate a token

Go to Dashboard → API Keys → Create token and copy the token value.

Run the setup wizard

rustunnel setup

The wizard prompts for your region and token, then writes ~/.rustunnel/config.yml with the correct server address.

Region [auto / eu / us / ap / self-hosted] (default: auto): (press Enter)
  Selecting nearest region… eu 12ms · us 143ms · ap 311ms · → eu (Helsinki, FI) 12ms
  Server set to: eu.edge.rustunnel.com:4040

Auth token: <paste your token>

Created: /Users/you/.rustunnel/config.yml

Pick a specific region (eu, us, ap) to skip probing, or self-hosted if you run your own server.

If you are self-hosting, skip token requests entirely — use the admin_token you set in your server.toml. See the Self-Hosting guide.

Step 3 — Open your first tunnel

# Expose a local HTTP service on port 3000
rustunnel http 3000

# Connect to a specific region
rustunnel http 3000 --region eu

# Request a custom subdomain
rustunnel http 3000 --subdomain myapp

# Expose a raw TCP service (e.g. PostgreSQL)
rustunnel tcp 5432

# Expose a UDP service (e.g. game server)
rustunnel udp 27015

# P2P tunnel — connect two clients directly
rustunnel p2p 27015 --name my-game --secret "shared-secret"

On a real terminal the client opens a live dashboard (session status, region latency, traffic counters, scrolling request log) and starts a local request inspector:

Inspect http://127.0.0.1:4040

Open that URL to browse headers/bodies and one-click Replay any request against your local service — handy for webhook iteration. Details: Terminal UI and Request Inspector. In line mode (--no-tui, piped stdout, or CI) you still get the public URL and inspector line:

  Selecting nearest region… eu 12ms · us 143ms · ap 311ms → eu (Helsinki, FI) 12ms
╭────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│                         rustunnel                          │
├────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│   HTTP → localhost:3000                                    │
│   https://abc123.eu.edge.rustunnel.com                     │
╰────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╯
  ✓ Tunnels active. Press Ctrl-C to quit.
  Inspect http://127.0.0.1:4040

Press q / Esc / Ctrl-C to close the tunnel.

Available regions

Region	Location	Server
`eu`	Helsinki, FI	`eu.edge.rustunnel.com:4040`
`us`	Hillsboro, OR	`us.edge.rustunnel.com:4040`
`ap`	Singapore	`ap.edge.rustunnel.com:4040`

The client auto-selects the nearest region by default when region: auto is set in your config.

Next steps

Client Guide

All commands, flags, live terminal UI, config options, and error reference.

Request Inspector

Browse and replay HTTP traffic on localhost:4040 while a tunnel is live.

Self-Hosting

Run your own rustunnel server on a VPS with systemd and Let’s Encrypt.

MCP Server

Let AI agents manage tunnels on your behalf via the Model Context Protocol.

Getting started

Guides

Reference

rustunnel Quickstart — expose localhost in three steps

Step 1 — Install the client

Step 2 — Get an auth token

Step 3 — Open your first tunnel

Available regions

Next steps

Client Guide

Request Inspector

Self-Hosting

MCP Server

​Step 1 — Install the client

​Step 2 — Get an auth token

​Step 3 — Open your first tunnel

​Available regions

​Next steps

Client Guide

Request Inspector

Self-Hosting

MCP Server

Step 1 — Install the client

Step 2 — Get an auth token

Step 3 — Open your first tunnel

Available regions

Next steps