Bot users
What is a Bot User?
A Bot User is a service account that owns a set of credentials - authtokens, API keys, and SSH keys - independently of a person. You can see and manage your bot users in the ngrok Dashboard.
A Bot User:
- Does not count as a standard user against your ngrok seat count
- May be attached to services that consume ngrok platform resources and can trigger overages. These areas include metrics like bandwidth, total sessions and endpoints, auth tokens, API tokens, and more.
- Has limited functionality
- Cannot log into the ngrok Dashboard
- Cannot be assigned or shared among multiple accounts
- Has some great benefits
- Credentials that are unique to a specific service or function instead of being connected to a person. A standard user may leave the account or want to rotate their credentials, and these actions should not impact production services running in ngrok.
- Events are attributed to the Bot User and can help you better understand what a specific production service in ngrok is doing, even when there are multiple production services in the same account.
- Can be deactivated to temporarily suspend all credentials associated with it
- Can be deleted to immediately revoke and delete all credentials associated with it
When should I use a Bot User?
A Bot User is the best suited to own the credentials of shipped products, devices, and integrations in production. The ideal flow is a credential you can associate with a specific task, keep active, and can rotate on a predictable schedule because it is unique to that integration, service, or function.
When should I not use a Bot User?
A Bot User is very useful, but it is not a good subsitute for a standard ngrok User. When a developer is building with ngrok they may need to rotate credentials after adding them to a build environment or accidentally committing them to a repository. The developer needs to be able to use the ngrok dashboard to see endpoint status, make configuration changes, and manage their own credentials, which a Bot User cannot do.
What happens when I delete a Bot User?
When you delete a Bot User, all credentials owned the user are immediately revoked and deleted. You cannot restore deleted credentials and if this happens you should create new credentials under a new or existing bot user.
Can I move my former employees credentials (API keys, authtokens, SSH keys) to a Bot User?
Credentials are assigned an owner when they are created and the owner cannot be changed. Access the ngrok Dashboard to create a new bot user.
How come I didn't know ngrok had Bot Users?
We are continuously improving the ngrok platform with new features! We launched Bot Users in early 2023 and are excited to see our customers adopt this functionality.