Showing a site to your phone

This handbook covers MixEngine through the mix command line. If you would rather work in a graphical interface, download the MixDB app at https://lab.mixnz.com/#mixdb. MixDB drives the same MixEngine, so everything in this handbook still applies.

Everything MixEngine serves answers on loopback and nowhere else. Testing on a real phone means making an exception, and the exception is per site, deliberate, and reversible.

mix site share blog.test

That prints a URL your phone can open and a QR code you can point a camera at. Three things happened:

1. The site started answering on this machine's address on the local network, instead of only on loopback. This site only — every other site keeps answering on loopback alone.
2. The certificate was reissued to cover that address, so the padlock survives the trip.
3. One administrator prompt asked for a firewall rule, for that one port.

When the machine has more than one network

MixEngine refuses to choose rather than putting your site on a network you did not mean — a laptop on office Wi-Fi and a VPN at the same time is the case this exists for. It names the candidates, and you pick:

mix site share blog.test --interface "Wi-Fi"

A share that ends by itself

mix site share blog.test --for 2h

30s, 90m, 2h, 1d, or a bare number of seconds. The length is measured from when the share began, so asking for a length shorter than the site has already been shared for is refused rather than ending it on the spot.

Without --for, a share lasts until you end it or until this machine leaves the network it was shared on. That last case is worth knowing about: closing the laptop lid and opening it somewhere else ends the share, because the address it was shared at is not this machine's address any more.

Taking it back

mix site unshare blog.test

That removes the firewall rule, rebinds the site to loopback, and reissues the certificate without the network address. A site that is not shared is left exactly as it is, so running it when you are not sure costs nothing.

What to know before you use it

• Anybody on that network can reach the site. There is no authentication in front of it. On a café network or a shared office, that is the whole story — share for a length, and unshare when you are done.
• The certificate is still MixEngine's. Your phone does not trust MixEngine's authority, so it will warn. Sharing is for checking a layout on a real screen, not for demonstrating a padlock.
• Nothing about your other sites changes. The rule is one port, one site, and it is undone by unshare, by the length running out, or by leaving the network.

Everything the prompt asks for is listed in What MixEngine asks permission for.

This page as Markdown: https://mixnz.github.io/mixengine/en/sharing.md