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Self-hosted tunnel

What runs on your machine,published on your domain.And if it drops, nobody sees an error.

LnkStart puts the apps and services on your home, office or laptop on the internet, through your own server. No ports to open on your router, and your traffic never passes through anyone else.

Your serviceapp.midominio.com
Your machine is up

Whoever opens the address sees your app, direct and over your HTTPS.

app.midominio.com → 127.0.0.1:3000
Your machine is off

It answers straight away with your notice page, or with the fallback address you choose. Never with an error.

app.midominio.com → https://tu-web.com

The visitor installs nothing, and the address is always the same.

TWO COMMANDS
# on your VPS, once
$ curl -fsSL https://lnkstart.com/install.sh | sudo sh -s -- server tunnels.midominio.com yo@correo.com
# on every machine you want to publish
$ curl -fsSL https://lnkstart.com/install.sh | sh -s -- join LD1.xxxx app=3000
HOW IT WORKS

Your server, your machine, and a direct connection between them

Your machine opens the connection to your VPS, and the visitor reaches that same VPS through your domain. There is nothing in between.
Your machine

The agent opens the connection to your server itself, so you need no public IP, no open ports on the router and no permission from your ISP.

Your VPS

The server receives visits on your domain, with automatic HTTPS. It is yours: it runs on your VPS and you control it.

Your visitor

Opens an address of yours in the browser, with nothing to install. Traffic goes straight between your server and your machine.

What you need: a VPS with a public IP (a small one is enough, it only forwards traffic), a domain, and machines that can reach the internet.

NO MIDDLEMAN

Your speed is your server's and your connection's

Traffic goes straight between your VPS and your machine: LnkStart adds no hop in between, does not cap bandwidth and does not charge for traffic. Your requests never cross our network, so we cannot read, cut or throttle them.

NEVER A RAW ERROR

If your machine goes down, your visitor doesn't notice

When a tunnel drops, the visitor usually gets a server error that tells them nothing. With LnkStart they see your notice page, or the address you choose.

Unavailable page

A clear notice that the service will be back shortly, or your own fallback redirect. Never the browser's raw error page.

Reconnect grace window

If your machine loses its connection for a couple of seconds, the server waits for it to come back before treating the service as down.

Failover between machines

The same app on two machines: if the active one drops, the standby takes over without the visitor noticing.

WHO IT IS FOR

Three ways of needing the same thing

You show your work

A link that does not break in front of the client

The project runs on your laptop or the office server, and the client opens it on your domain, with its padlock. Turn the machine off and they get a page that explains it, not an error.

Homelab and self-hosting

Your hardware at home, with a proper door in front

The power is at home and the VPS only opens the door, so a small one is enough. HTTPS per service, a password or a token where it is needed, and nothing exposed but what you publish.

Integrators

Reaching what you installed at the client's site

ERP, NAS, cameras or controllers behind each client's router. One service per site, without opening ports on their network and without handing over the whole machine.

All three run the same binary against the same server; what changes is where the hardware sits.

WHAT IT INCLUDES

TCP: SSH, RDP, databases

Public with an allow-list of IPs, or private: a port on your machine and nothing exposed.

UDP: VoIP, games, WireGuard

Same model as TCP, with a response limit that stops your server being used to amplify attacks.

Failover between machines

The same app on two machines: if the active one drops, the standby takes over.

Load sharing

Several machines serving the same name at once, with visits shared between them.

QUIC, with WebSocket fallback

Faster under packet loss and survives network changes; if the network blocks UDP, it switches by itself.

Also: Automatic HTTPS · WebSockets · Password or token · Several services. Everything, in Features →

QUESTIONS

What people ask before installing anything

Where the traffic goes, what happens when something goes down, and what leaves your server.

Does my traffic go through your servers?
No. The tunnel runs straight between your machines and the server you control, and that is where it ends. The only thing the binary asks us for is the license, when you register it and when it renews, and once a day it tells us its state (without domains or names).
What does a visitor see if the machine or the app goes down?
A page saying the service will be back shortly, or the fallback redirect you configure. Never a server error, which tells them nothing and looks like your fault.
Do I need a VPS?
Yes. The server runs on a machine of yours with a public IP, and that is exactly what keeps the traffic away from anyone else. A small one is enough: it only forwards traffic.
What if the VPS goes down?
Then there is nothing left to show the notice page: what LnkStart covers is your machine or your app going down, not the server everything comes in through. A small VPS rarely goes down; if it does, your services do not answer until it is back, and your machines reconnect on their own. If it does not come back, you rebuild it on another VPS in minutes from a lnkstart server backup copy.
What does it cost?
Nothing: it is free with registration, for a company or an integrator too. Traffic is never charged: it is your server and your connection.
What if I do not renew the license?
The server keeps running and your services stay published. What you lose is updates, except a forced fix for a serious bug, which still arrives. An expired license never cuts traffic.
What data leaves my server?

A closed list.

What is sent:

  • when the install finishes, the step it reached and how it ended;
  • once a day and when renewing the license: version, system, usage counts and traffic totals.

Never sent: visitor IPs, URLs, headers, content, machine names or domains.

With --no-telemetry at install time, only what renewing the license requires is sent.

The full list, field by field →

What about HTTPS?
Automatic with Let's Encrypt, one certificate per service, renewed on its own. If you already run nginx in front, the server sits behind it without touching your certificates.
Yours is not here?
Write to us
PRICING

Free with registration, for everyone

The whole tunnel is free with registration, companies and integrators included. Traffic is never charged: it is your server and your connection.