Cloudflare tunnel

Securely Exposing yourservice with Cloudflare Tunnel

Cloudflare Tunnel allows you to expose your local yourservice server (running at 192.168.0.170:9000) to the internet securely, without opening any firewall ports.

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Step 1: Set Up a Cloudflare Account

1. Sign up for Cloudflare (if you haven’t already) at Cloudflare.
2. Add your domain (e.g., yourdomain.com) to Cloudflare.
3. Ensure your domain uses Cloudflare’s nameservers.
   • This is required to use Cloudflare’s security and DNS services.

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Step 2: Install Cloudflare Tunnel (cloudflared) on yourservice Server

1. Download and install Cloudflare Tunnel (cloudflared)
   On your yourservice server, run the following:

   curl -fsSL https://github.com/cloudflare/cloudflared/releases/latest/download/cloudflared-linux-amd64 -o cloudflared
   chmod +x cloudflared
   sudo mv cloudflared /usr/local/bin/

   (For Windows, download from here.)
2. Authenticate Cloudflare Tunnel with Your Account
   Run:

   cloudflared tunnel login

   • This will open a browser window.
   • Select your domain and authorize the tunnel.

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Step 3: Create a Cloudflare Tunnel

1. Create a new tunnel:

   cloudflared tunnel create yourservice-tunnel

   • This will generate a tunnel ID and store the credentials.
2. Set up a configuration file
   Create the Cloudflare Tunnel config file:

   sudo mkdir -p /etc/cloudflared
   sudo nano /etc/cloudflared/config.yml

   Add the following:

   tunnel: yourservice-tunnel
   credentials-file: /root/.cloudflared/yourservice-tunnel.json
   
   ingress:
     - hostname: yourservice.yourdomain.com
       service: http://localhost:9000
     - service: http_status:404

   Save and exit (CTRL + X, then Y, then ENTER).

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Step 4: Route Tunnel to Your Domain

1. Route traffic through Cloudflare DNS
   Run:

   cloudflared tunnel route dns yourservice-tunnel yourservice.yourdomain.com

   • This creates a CNAME record in Cloudflare pointing to the tunnel.
2. Start the tunnel:

   sudo cloudflared tunnel run yourservice-tunnel

   • Now, your yourservice server is accessible at https://yourservice.yourdomain.com.

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Step 5: Secure Access with Cloudflare Access (Optional but Recommended)

1. Go to Cloudflare Dashboard → Zero Trust → Access.
2. Create an Access Policy for yourservice.yourdomain.com:
   • Allow only specific users or IPs (e.g., your Shuffle server IP).
   • Use Google/Microsoft authentication for secure login.
3. Now, only authorized users can access yourservice!

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Step 6: Run as a Systemd Service (for Auto-Start)

Create a systemd service to keep the tunnel running automatically:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/cloudflared-yourservice.service

Add the following content:

[Unit]
Description=Cloudflare Tunnel for yourservice
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/cloudflared tunnel run yourservice-tunnel
Restart=always
User=root
WorkingDirectory=/root
StandardOutput=journal
StandardError=journal

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then enable and start the service:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable cloudflared-yourservice
sudo systemctl start cloudflared-yourservice

To check its status:

sudo systemctl status cloudflared-yourservice

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Benefits of Using Cloudflare Tunnel

✅ No need to open firewall ports
✅ Hides your real IP
✅ Adds Cloudflare security (DDoS protection, WAF, etc.)
✅ Restricts access via Cloudflare Access (optional)