If you want to run a service from your local machine and have the ability to
access it fast and reliably from the web then the open source tunneling/reverse proxy tool, PageKite, should be right up your alley. "PageKite makes local websites or SSH servers publicly
accessible in mere seconds, and works with any computer and any Internet
connection." It is in essence a reverse proxy tool that connects local servers to the public. By using Pagekite one can access their localhost, web server, file/folder, local SSH server, etc.
Using Pagekite is incredibly easy. Basically you have a 30 day trial and if you like it then you can choose to pay,
and it is on a "pay-what-you-want" basis. The amount of bandwidth and
months of service which you receive will depend on how much you pay. So after you sign up for your trial all you have to do is download the code from their website at http://pagekite.net and install the .py file. You can easily do so by using...
#curl -s https://pagekite.net/pk/ |sudo bash
You can access your Pagekite site which will be located at a URL such as http://yourname.pagekite.me/ after you sign-up. Using #pagekite.py 80 yourname.pagekite.me will connect your localhost:80 web server to a publicly visible site accessible by going to your page, such as "yourname.pagekite.me" in this example. Pagekite can obviously be very useful in an assortment of ways such as being able to "take control of your own data and store it in a machine of your choice" and you can choose when you want to share and with whom you will share your data and content with. And since you don't have to store your data on centralized servers your privacy stays in tact, keeping your server IP address private and gives you the ability to use Tor and encryption with your personal domain.
Another choice is Progrium's "localtunnel". Using "RubyGems" install localtunnel by # sudo gem install localtunnel choosing any port you like, such as using Apache on port 8080 at which point you can use # localtunnel -k ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub 8080 If you are succesful you should see something like
Port 8080 is now publicly accessible from http://8bv2.localtunnel.com ...
If not there is a nice short README which exists at https://github.com/progrium/localtunnel#readme