Expose a Local LLM — Localport

Running a large language model locally with Ollama or LM Studio? Localport lets you share that model's API with teammates, connect it to external apps, or access it from other devices — all through a public URL.

Why tunnel a local LLM?

Share with your team — One person runs the model, everyone uses it via the API
Connect external apps — Tools like Continue, Cursor, or custom scripts can call your model from anywhere
Access from other devices — Use the model from your phone, tablet, or another machine on a different network
No cloud GPU costs — Run models on your own hardware, share the inference endpoint

Ollama

Ollama serves a REST API on port 11434 by default. Tunnel it like any other HTTP service:

localport http 11434 --token YOUR_TOKEN

Now anyone with the URL can call the Ollama API:

curl https://abc123.tunnel.localport.dev/api/generate -d '{
  "model": "llama3.2",
  "prompt": "Explain TCP tunneling in one paragraph",
  "stream": false
}'

Ollama needs to allow external connections

By default, Ollama only listens on localhost. To allow connections from Localport, set the environment variable OLLAMA_HOST=0.0.0.0 before starting Ollama, or add it to your systemd service file.

LM Studio

LM Studio's local server runs on port 1234 by default:

localport http 1234 --token YOUR_TOKEN

LM Studio exposes an OpenAI-compatible API, so any tool that works with the OpenAI API can point to your tunnel URL instead:

curl https://abc123.tunnel.localport.dev/v1/chat/completions -d '{
  "model": "local-model",
  "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]
}'

Connecting AI coding tools

Many AI-powered development tools let you configure a custom API endpoint. Point them to your tunnel URL:

Tool	Setting
Continue (VS Code)	Set `apiBase` in config to your tunnel URL
Open WebUI	Set the Ollama URL to your tunnel URL
Custom scripts	Replace `http://localhost:11434` with your tunnel URL

Tips

Keep the model loaded — Ollama unloads models after inactivity. Use OLLAMA_KEEP_ALIVE=-1 to prevent this if you're sharing the endpoint.
Monitor usage — The Localport dashboard shows connection counts and bandwidth, so you can see how much your model is being used.
Reserve a subdomain (any plan) — Keep a stable URL for team configurations that shouldn't change.

Public by default

Localport tunnels are public by default — anyone with the URL can call your LLM API. Lock it down with the built-in access controls (IP allowlisting and password protection, available on all plans) or add authentication to your API layer.

Next steps

HTTP Tunnels — More about HTTP tunneling
Shared Tunnels — Let multiple people connect to the same endpoint