Get Started with Optimistix Tunnel

Optimistix Tunnel is a simple and secure way to expose your localhost or local HTTP/HTTPS/TLS service to the internet using SSH—no installation, no signup, and no additional software required.

Requirements

A local service running on a port (e.g., localhost:3000)
SSH client installed (available by default on most systems)

Supported Platforms

Optimistix Tunnel works on:

Linux — SSH is usually preinstalled
macOS — SSH is built-in and ready to use
Windows
- Use Windows Terminal, PowerShell, or Git Bash
- On Windows 10 and later, OpenSSH is built-in (or can be enabled via “Optional Features”)

Quick Start

Run the following command in your terminal to expose your local service:

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ssh -p 1122 -R 80:localhost:3000 ssh.optimistixtunnel.com

This will create two public URLs pointing to your local service:

http://<your-subdomain>.otxtnl.net for HTTP
https://<your-subdomain>.otxtnl.net for HTTPS

Both URLs will point to localhost:3000. You can use either to access your service securely from anywhere.

Example

If your local app runs at:

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http://localhost:1313

Run:

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ssh -p 1122 -R 80:localhost:1313 ssh.optimistixtunnel.com

You’ll receive a public URL in the terminal output. You can open this URL in any browser to access your app from anywhere. The URL will be in the format https://<your-subdomain>.otxtnl.net.

Use Cases

Testing webhooks from external services
Sharing a local site or API with clients or teammates
Remote access to a local development environment
Demoing projects without deploying

Limitations

Currently supports only exposing local HTTP and HTTPS/TCP/TLS services
Bandwidth and connection limits apply
Sessions are limited to a maximum of 60 minutes

Note

Sometimes, localhost does not resolve to 127.0.0.1 but instead uses its IPv6 address, which can cause tunneling to fail. To verify this, run the following command:

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ping localhost

If it resolves to an IPv6 address (i.e., [::1]), replace localhost with 127.0.0.1.

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ssh -p 1122 -R 80:127.0.0.1:1313 ssh.optimistixtunnel.com

Support

For questions or support, contact: hello@optimistixtunnel.com