## Connecting to A Channel

Learn how to make your assistant available on:

- [Your Own Website](https://legacy-docs-oss.rasa.com/docs/rasa/connectors/your-own-website)
- [Facebook Messenger](https://legacy-docs-oss.rasa.com/docs/rasa/connectors/facebook-messenger)
- [Slack](https://legacy-docs-oss.rasa.com/docs/rasa/connectors/slack)
- [Telegram](https://legacy-docs-oss.rasa.com/docs/rasa/connectors/telegram)
- [Twilio](https://legacy-docs-oss.rasa.com/docs/rasa/connectors/twilio)
- [Microsoft Bot Framework](https://legacy-docs-oss.rasa.com/docs/rasa/connectors/microsoft-bot-framework)
- [Cisco Webex Teams](https://legacy-docs-oss.rasa.com/docs/rasa/connectors/cisco-webex-teams)
- [RocketChat](https://legacy-docs-oss.rasa.com/docs/rasa/connectors/rocketchat)
- [Mattermost](https://legacy-docs-oss.rasa.com/docs/rasa/connectors/mattermost)
- [Google Hangouts Chat](https://legacy-docs-oss.rasa.com/docs/rasa/connectors/hangouts)
- [Custom Connectors](https://legacy-docs-oss.rasa.com/docs/rasa/connectors/custom-connectors)

## Testing Channels on Your Local Machine

If you're running a Rasa server on `localhost`, most external channels won't be able to find your server URL, since `localhost` is not open to the internet.

To make a port on your local machine publicly available on the internet, you can use [ngrok](https://ngrok.com/). Alternatively, see this [list](https://github.com/anderspitman/awesome-tunneling) tracking and comparing other tunneling solutions.

After installing ngrok, run:

ngrok http 5005; rasa run

When you follow the instructions to make your assistant available on a channel, use the ngrok URL. Specifically, wherever the instructions say to use `https://<host>:<port>/webhooks/<CHANNEL>/webhook`, use `<ngrok_url>/webhooks/<CHANNEL>/webhook`, replacing `<ngrok_url>` with the randomly generated URL displayed in your ngrok terminal window. For example, if connecting your bot to Slack, your URL should resemble `https://26e7e7744191.ngrok.io/webhooks/slack/webhook`.

##### caution

With the free-tier of ngrok, you can run into limits on how many connections you can make per minute. As of writing this, it is set to 40 connections / minute.

Alternatively you can make your assistant listen on a specific address using the `-i` command line option:

rasa run -p 5005 -i 192.168.69.150

This is particularly useful when your internet facing machines connect to backend servers using a VPN interface.