<titledata-rh="true">Private Shares | Zrok</title><metadata-rh="true"name="viewport"content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1"><metadata-rh="true"name="twitter:card"content="summary_large_image"><metadata-rh="true"property="og:url"content="https://docs.zrok.io/docs/concepts/sharing-private/"><metadata-rh="true"property="og:locale"content="en"><metadata-rh="true"name="docusaurus_locale"content="en"><metadata-rh="true"name="docsearch:language"content="en"><metadata-rh="true"name="docusaurus_version"content="current"><metadata-rh="true"name="docusaurus_tag"content="docs-default-current"><metadata-rh="true"name="docsearch:version"content="current"><metadata-rh="true"name="docsearch:docusaurus_tag"content="docs-default-current"><metadata-rh="true"property="og:title"content="Private Shares | Zrok"><metadata-rh="true"name="description"content="zrok was built to share and access digital resources. A private share allows a resource to be"><metadata-rh="true"property="og:description"content="zrok was built to share and access digital resources. A private share allows a resource to be"><linkdata-rh="true"rel="icon"href="/img/space-ziggy.png"><linkdata-rh="true"rel="canonical"href="https://docs.zrok.io/docs/concepts/sharing-private/"><linkdata-rh="true"rel="alternate"href="https://docs.zrok.io/docs/concepts/sharing-private/"hreflang="en"><linkdata-rh="true"rel="alternate"href="https://docs.zrok.io/docs/concepts/sharing-private/"hreflang="x-default"><linkdata-rh="true"rel="preconnect"href="https://CO73R59OLO-dsn.algolia.net"crossorigin="anonymous"><linkrel="preconnect"href="https://www.googletagmanager.com">
accessed on another user's system as if it were local to them. Privately shared resources can only be accessed by another <code>zrok</code> user who has the details of your unique share. You are in control of who can access your <code>private</code> shares by sharing the the share token.</p>
<p>Peer-to-peer private resource sharing is one of the things that makes <code>zrok</code> unique.</p>
<p><code>zrok</code> also provides <code>public</code> sharing of resources with non-<code>zrok</code> users. Public resource sharing is limited to only resources that can be accessed over <code>HTTP</code> or <code>HTTPS</code>. <code>private</code> sharing works with all of the resources types that <code>zrok</code> supports.</p>
<p><code>private</code> shares are accessed using the <code>zrok access</code> command, and require the accessing user to have a <code>zrok enable</code>-d account on the same service instance where the share was created.</p>
<p>The <code>private</code> share is identified by a <em>share token</em>. The accessing user will use the share token, along with the <code>zrok access</code> command to create a local endpoint on their system, which lets them use the shared resource as if it were local to their system.</p>
<p><code>zrok</code> does not require you to open any firewall ports or otherwise compromise the security of your local system; there is never an attack surface open to the public internet. As soon as you terminate the <code>zrok share</code> process, you immediately terminate any possible access to your shared resource.</p>
<p>The shared resource can be a development web server to share with friends and colleagues, a webhook from a server running in the cloud which has <code>zrok</code> running and has been instructed to <code>access</code> the private resource. <code>zrok</code> can also share files, websites, and low-level TCP and UDP network connections using the <code>tunnel</code> backend. What matters is that the access to the shared resource is not done in a public way, and can only be accessed by other <code>zrok</code> users that have access to your share token.</p>
<p>The peer-to-peer capabilities of <code>zrok</code> are an important property of the underlying <ahref="https://docs.openziti.io/docs/learn/introduction/"target="_blank"rel="noopener noreferrer">OpenZiti</a> network that <code>zrok</code> uses to provide connectivity between users and resources.</p>
