Introducing Malai TCP & A Bonus!

malai-0.2.5 is out now! It brings a new feature to share your local TCP server with the world!

Now you can share any TCP-based service running locally — including your SSH service, Postgres database, Redis, or even a custom TCP protocol — using the same seamless workflow that you used with malai http.

Install malai today using:

curl -fsSL https://malai.sh/install.sh | sh

Lang:

bash

And run:

$ malai tcp 5432 --public
Malai: Sharing port 5432
Run malai tcp-bridge <id52> <some-port>
to connect to it from any machine.

Lang:

bash

This will share your local TCP server running on port 5432 with the world. You can connect to it from any machine using the command:

$ malai tcp-bridge <id52> 9091
Listening on 127.0.0.1:9091

Lang:

bash

Now you can connect to localhost:9091 and it'll go through malai and connect to the exposed service.

Share your SSH server

You can even use malai tcp to expose your local SSH server for remote access — without opening port 22 publicly.

First, make sure the OpenSSH server is running:

systemctl status sshd

Lang:

bash

Then, run the following on the machine where the SSH server is running:

$ malai tcp 22 --public
Malai: Sharing port 5432
Run malai tcp-bridge <id52> <some-port>
to connect to it from any machine.

Lang:

bash

On another machine, use the bridge command:

$ malai tcp-bridge <id52> 9090

Lang:

bash

Replace <id52> with the ID printed by the malai tcp command. Once the bridge is running, SSH into your machine like this:

ssh -p 9090 user@localhost

Lang:

bash

You're connecting to localhost:9090, which is where the tcp-bridge is listening. It forwards your SSH traffic to the original machine via the Kulfi network. Make sure to use the correct user that exists on the remote machine.

Use cases

Secure your SSH server behind the Kulfi network.
Share a local Postgres or Redis instance with your team.
Demo a multiplayer game server or custom TCP service.
Students can share networked apps or environments with instructors for real-time help or grading.

To learn more about malai tcp, check out the documentation.

Wait, we have more!

We've also added a new malai folder command to share a folder with everyone. This is similar to malai http but it serves your local files and folders. This is more like a call for testing than launching a new feature. Try it out and give us feedback!

malai folder Example

$ malai folder ~/projects/fastn/assets/ --public
Serving "/Users/siddhant/projects/fastn/assets" on http://127.0.0.1:59136
Malai: Sharing http://127.0.0.1:59136 at
https://pubqaksutn9im0ncln2bki3i8diekh3sr4vp94o2cg1agjrb8dhg.kulfi.site
To avoid the public proxy, run your own with: malai http-bridge

Or use: malai browse kulfi://pubqaksutn9im0ncln2bki3i8diekh3sr4vp94o2cg1agjrb8dhg

Lang:

bash

This spins up a basic HTTP server behind the scenes to serve the provided folder:

Browsing a folder served by malai

Star us on GitHub ⭐

We're just getting started, and your support means a lot.

If you like what we're building, consider starring the repo on GitHub. It helps others discover the project and keeps us motivated to build more!