TCP Proxy: Expose TCP Ports Publicly

Today, we’re announcing the public preview of TCP Proxy — a new way to expose TCP ports publicly.

Until now, services on Koyeb could only be publicly exposed via HTTP, HTTP/2, WebSocket, and gRPC protocols. TCP-based workloads were limited to private access within the mesh network for service-to-service communication.

With TCP Proxy, that changes. You can now make any TCP service publicly accessible with minimal configuration.

Whether you’re running:

• Databases like MySQL, MongoDB, Redis
• Remote access protocols like SSH, RDP, VNC
• IoT protocols like MQTT, AMQP

You can now reach them over the public Internet easily. No more need for complex proxy setups or custom routing rules.

TCP proxy is available today for all users on any of our pay-as-you-go plans, from Starter to Enterprise plans and can be activated with a single click using the control panel or Koyeb CLI.

Get started with TCP Proxy

TCP Proxy allows you to expose the TCP ports of your Koyeb services to the public Internet, enabling direct connections for protocols like SSH, database clients, and more.

By default, TCP Proxy is disabled. To enable it, go to your service settings in the Koyeb Dashboard and check the “Proxy TCP access” box for the port you want to expose.

Let’s walk through a common use case: deploying an SSH server and making it accessible over the Internet using the Koyeb CLI.

koyeb app init sshdd \
   --docker koyeb/ubuntu-ssh-server \
   --ports 22:tcp \
   --proxy-ports 22:tcp \
   --env PUBLIC_KEY=<YOUR_PUBLIC_KEY> \
   --instance-type small

In this command:

• --ports 22:tcp tells Koyeb your app listens on internal TCP port 22.
• --proxy-ports 22:tcp enables public TCP Proxy access to that port.
• --env PUBLIC_KEY=... injects your SSH public key for authentication.

Once deployed, Koyeb will assign a public proxy host and a random TCP port — for example: 01.proxy.koyeb.app:18051.

You can then connect to your SSH server using the assigned proxy host and port like so:

ssh dev@01.proxy.koyeb.app -p 18051

And just like that, you’re connected to your Koyeb service using SSH over the public Internet!

Try it today

We’re excited to bring TCP Proxy to all Koyeb users and unlock a whole new range of use cases.

If you’re interested in how it all works, take a look at the TCP Proxy documentation.

Have questions, feedback, or just want to show off what you’re building? Join us in the Koyeb Community on Slack — we’d love to hear from you.