Expose Local Services Securely with FRP: A Step‑by‑Step Guide

FRP (Fast Reverse Proxy) is an open‑source tool that enables you to expose local services—such as web applications or databases—behind NAT or firewalls to the public internet without needing a public IP address.

Key Features

Supports TCP, UDP, HTTP, HTTPS and newer protocols like QUIC and KCP.

Custom domain binding and SSL encryption for secure access.

Token and OIDC client authentication mechanisms.

Web‑based dashboard for monitoring and managing proxies.

Bandwidth control and load‑balancing to prevent overload.

Installation Guide

Download FRP

# Download server and client binaries
wget https://github.com/fatedier/frp/releases/download/v0.62.1/frp_0.62.1_linux_amd64.tar.gz
 tar -zxvf frp_0.62.1_linux_amd64.tar.gz
cd frp_0.62.1_linux_amd64

Run the server (public machine)

Edit frps.toml:

bindPort = 7000
vhostHTTPPort = 8080

Start the server: ./frps -c frps.toml Configure the client (internal machine)

Edit frpc.toml:

serverAddr = "YOUR_PUBLIC_IP"
serverPort = 7000
[proxies]
name = "web"
type = "http"
localPort = 8080
customDomains = ["yourdomain.com"]

Start the client: ./frpc -c frpc.toml Test access

From any internet location, open http://yourdomain.com:8080 to reach the internal service.

FRP solves the lack of public IP and NAT traversal problems, making it a free, lightweight solution for developers, DevOps engineers, or small teams needing quick, secure exposure of internal services.