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Share from your laptop

A file for a customer, a directory of photos, the web app you are working on. One command puts it on the internet at https://laptop.example.org, for as long as you choose, with no account at a tunnel provider.

What you get #

juist share puts a file or a directory at a random link under your laptop’s own name, and juist publish PORT does the same for a web server running on the laptop. This is what ngrok or a cloudflared quick tunnel do, but under your own domain and through your own ingress. TLS ends on the laptop, so the ingress never sees the content.

A share ends with its command, when --for runs out, or after seven days at most.

What you need #

  • A network with a domain and an ingress, a device with a public address that passes connections on. Publishing services sets both up once, in its first three steps.
  • The laptop running Linux or FreeBSD.

Setting it up #

1on an admin's device

Let the laptop publish under its own name without asking an admin each time:

juist grant laptop publish
2on laptop

Share a directory, or the web server on port 8000:

juist share ~/photos/2026
juist publish 8000 --for 2h

The first prints its link, https://laptop.example.org/…/ with a random path, and runs until Ctrl-C. The second prints publishing 127.0.0.1:8000 at https://laptop.example.org, until …. With -b, a share keeps running in the background until juist share --stop or --for ends it.

3on laptop

See what is shared, and end it:

juist share
juist share --stop ~/photos/2026

Watch out for #

  • A share is public to anyone who has the link. The random path keeps it from being guessed; every other path answers 404.
  • juist publish PORT has no random path. It answers every path at https://laptop.example.org, and the name is in the CA’s public certificate logs, so expect scanners. Publish only a server that may face the internet, and give it a --for.
  • The laptop is a full member. If someone breaks into the web server you publish, they reach your network from it. For a server that runs for longer, use a service member.
  • The share needs the laptop. When the laptop goes away, its shares end at most ten minutes later.

Read more #