Rolling your own localtunnel

django_command.py

# this file lives in /project/app/management/commands/devtunnel.py
# it just spins up a localtunnel and retries it if it fails, until it gets a key command shutdown.
# you need to define some configuartion in your settings.py: SSH_TUNNEL_USER, SSH_SERVER_IP
# This assumes you're running your website on port 8070

import sys
import time
import subprocess

from django.conf import settings
from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand, CommandError

# Inspriation from http://code.activestate.com/recipes/576911-keep-a-process-up-and-running/

class Command(BaseCommand):
    args = ''
    help = 'Opens the dev tunnel based on your `settings_local.py`.'

    def handle(self, *args, **options):

        try: # if we have a SSH_TUNNEL_USER attribute in settings.py
            user = "%s@" % settings.SSH_TUNNEL_USER
        except AttributeError:
            user = ''

        cmd = """ssh %s%s \
            -n -oExitOnForwardFailure=yes \
            -oTCPKeepAlive=yes \
            -oServerAliveInterval=2 \
            -oStrictHostKeyChecking=no \
            -R%s:127.0.0.1:%s idle.js""" % (
                user,
                settings.SSH_SERVER_IP,
                settings.SSH_TUNNEL_PORT,
                8070,
                )

        def start_subprocess():
            return subprocess.Popen(cmd, shell=True)

        try: 
            p = start_subprocess()

            while True:
                
                res = p.poll()
                if res is not None:
                    print p.pid, 'was killed, restarting it'
                    p = start_subprocess()
                else:
                    out, err = p.communicate()
                    # if out:
                    #     print out

                time.sleep(2)

        except KeyboardInterrupt:
            p.terminate()

idle.js

#! /usr/bin/nodejs
// I put this in /usr/local/bin/idle.js
// This just exists to keep the tunnel up.

console.log("Welcome to the dev tunnel.")

var sleep = function(s) {
  var e = new Date().getTime() + (s * 1000);

  while (new Date().getTime() <= e) {
    ;
  }
};

while(true) {
    sleep(10);
    console.log('.');
}

user.nginx.conf

# add this to your nginx config for the person sshing in.  
# The server name can be any subdomain
# the port in `proxy_pass` needs to match SSH_TUNNEL_PORT.

server {
  listen   80;
  listen   443  ssl;
  server_name peter.dev.flaregun.io;

  location / {
      proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
      proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
      proxy_redirect off;

      proxy_pass   http://127.0.0.1:3020;
  }
}