How to Put a Local Service on the Public Internet with FRP (Without Losing Your Mind Over Config Files)

ChenXX — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 12:10:52 +0000

The problem every self-hoster hits

You built something. A local API. A Minecraft world for your friends. A self-hosted dashboard. An ERP running on the office machine. It works great — on your LAN.

The moment you want someone outside to reach it, the fun begins:

Port forwarding? Good luck if you're behind CGNAT, a corporate firewall, or an ISP that doesn't give you a public IP.
VPN? Now every person who wants access has to install a client, join a network, and stay connected. Overkill for "let me show you this one page."
Cloud deploy? Now you're maintaining two environments, paying for a VPS you didn't need, and shipping data somewhere it doesn't have to live.

What most people actually want is simpler: take this one local port, give it a public address, done.

That's exactly what FRP does.

What FRP is

FRP (Fast Reverse Proxy) is an open-source tool by fatedier that exposes a local service behind a NAT or firewall to the public internet. It's battle-tested, written in Go, and has been the go-to answer in self-hosting communities for years.

The model is clean — two pieces:

frps (the server) — runs on a machine with a public IP (a $5 VPS is plenty).
frpc (the client) — runs on your local machine, the one with the service you want to expose.

The client opens an outbound tunnel to the server. The server listens on a public port and forwards traffic back through the tunnel. NAT and firewalls don't matter because the connection is initiated from inside.

[Visitor] → [frps on public VPS:7000] ⇄ tunnel ⇄ [frpc on your laptop] → [localhost:8080]

That's the whole idea. It works for TCP, UDP, HTTP, HTTPS. People run Minecraft servers, remote desktops, internal dashboards, and dev previews through it every day.

The catch: config files

FRP works great. The friction isn't the protocol — it's the workflow.

To run frpc, you write a TOML config file:

serverAddr = "203.0.113.10"
serverPort = 7000
auth.token = "your-secret-key"

[[proxies]]
name = "my-web"
type = "tcp"
localIP = "127.0.0.1"
localPort = 8080
remotePort = 8080

Then you launch it from a terminal. Change a port? Edit the file, restart the process. Add a second tunnel? Edit again, restart again. Want to know if it's actually working? Check the terminal output — or don't, because you closed that tab two hours ago.

This is fine if you live in the terminal. It's a wall for everyone else — a small-business owner running an ERP, a parent hosting Minecraft for their kid, a designer sharing a local mockup.

MoonProxy: a GUI for FRP

MoonProxy is an MIT-licensed desktop client for FRP. It wraps frpc in a GUI so you don't have to touch config files or terminals.

What it adds over plain frpc:

Form-based tunnel config — no toml/ini files. Add a tunnel like filling out a form.
One-click start/stop — a toggle button with real connection state, derived from frpc output (not an optimistic flag).
Endpoint health polling every 3s — catches a dead local service before your users do.
System tray resident — close the window, the tunnel keeps running. Launch at login, silent start.
Scheduled tunnels — set weekday + time window. Hot-reloaded, no restart.
Engine self-update — pulls new frpc from upstream FRP releases, SHA256-verifies, atomically swaps.

Built with Tauri v2 + Vue 3 + Rust + TypeScript. The frpc binary is bundled via Tauri sidecar — no separate FRP install. macOS (Apple Silicon + Intel) and Windows x64.

You bring your own frps (self-hosted VPS or a community node you trust). MoonProxy only manages the client side — it doesn't relay your traffic through any third-party infrastructure. Auth key stays with you.

It's independent of fatedier/frp — that project deserves all the credit for the protocol. This is just a GUI layer.

Getting started

Download from moonproxy.app or GitHub Releases (DMG for macOS, EXE for Windows).
On macOS first launch, right-click → Open, or run xattr -cr "/Applications/MoonProxy Desktop.app".
Set up your frps on a VPS (plenty of community tutorials exist).
Open MoonProxy, add a tunnel, click start.

That's it. Your local service now has a public address.

Project links

Website: moonproxy.app
Source: github.com/MoonProxyHQ/moonproxy-desktop
License: MIT, permanently free

It's not trying to replace the CLI — if you're happy scripting frp, keep doing that. This is for folks who want a tray icon and a toggle instead of a terminal window.

Happy to answer questions in the comments!

DEV Community: MoonProxyHQ

How to Put a Local Service on the Public Internet with FRP (Without Losing Your Mind Over Config Files)