· NGSRV Team

How to expose localhost:8888 to the internet

Most guides assume port 3000. Jupyter defaults to 8888. Useful when you need a colleague to see a notebook UI remotely. This page is for 8888 specifically.

Jupyter defaults to 8888. Useful when you need a colleague to see a notebook UI remotely. The tunnel does not care what framework you run. It forwards HTTPS to whatever is bound on 8888.

Quick start

curl -fsSL https://get.ngsrv.com | bash
ngsrv token <YOUR_TOKEN>
ngsrv http 8888

You get a public URL like https://furry-otter-1842.tnl.ngsrv.com that routes to http://localhost:8888.

What usually runs on 8888

  • Jupyter Notebook
  • JupyterLab

Typical dev command: jupyter lab --port 8888

Install the CLI

# macOS (Homebrew)
brew install ngsrv/tap/ngsrv

# macOS / Linux
curl -fsSL https://get.ngsrv.com | bash

# Windows (PowerShell)
irm https://get.ngsrv.com/windows | iex

Sign up at ngsrv.com/register if you need a token. Free tier, no card.

Run the tunnel

With your server already up on port 8888:

ngsrv http 8888

Sample output:

forwarding  https://furry-otter-1842.tnl.ngsrv.com -> http://localhost:8888
status      online

Stable subdomain (optional)

Random names change when you restart. For webhooks or client previews, reserve one:

ngsrv http 8888 --subdomain notebook
# -> https://notebook.tnl.ngsrv.com

When it breaks

connection refused — Nothing is listening on 8888. Confirm with lsof -i :8888 (macOS/Linux) or netstat -ano | findstr :8888 (Windows).

401 invalid token — Re-run ngsrv token <YOUR_TOKEN> from the dashboard.

Tunnel drops — ngsrv reconnects on its own. Persistent drops usually mean VPN or proxy interference.