setup cloudflared tunnel on ubuntu
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I run a cloudflared tunnel on my ubuntu server to expose applications running on the server to the internet. I'm setting up a new server and running...

Date: December 2, 2024

I run a cloudflared tunnel on my ubuntu server to expose applications running on the server to the internet. I’m setting up a new server and running cloudflared in its own vm.

Get the cloudflared binary
──────────────────────────

[code]
  sudo wget https://github.com/cloudflare/cloudflared/releases/latest/download/cloudflared-linux-amd64 -O /usr/local/bin/cloudflared
  
  sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/cloudflared

Now setup the config directory. For the systemd service to work, the config file needs to be in /etc/cloudflared. I like to give my user rights to edit the config file without being sudo, we will do that here by creating a group cloudflared, add ourselves to the group, give ownership of /etc/cloudflared to the group, give group write access to the directory, and refresh groups.

[code]
  sudo mkdir -p /etc/cloudflared
  sudo groupadd cloudflared
  sudo usermod -aG cloudflared $USER
  sudo chown -R root:cloudflared /etc/cloudflared
  sudo chmod g+w /etc/cloudflared
  newgrp cloudflared

login
─────

Now we can log into the domain zone with cloudflared.

[code]
  cloudflared tunnel login

This will give a url, follow it in a browser to log in.

[code]
  cloudflared tunnel create <NAME>
  mv ~/.cloudflared/cert.pem /etc/cloudflared/cert.pem
  mv ~/.cloudflared/<tunnel-id>.json /etc/cloudflared/<tunnel-id>.json

config
──────

Now setup config. For the systemd service to work, the config file needs to be in /etc/cloudflared. The config that I have provided below will expose localhost:8000 to tester.example.com

[code]
  export CLOUDFLARED_TUNNEL_ID=$(ls /etc/cloudflared/*.json | xargs -n 1 basename | sed 's/\.json$//')
  mv ~/.cloudflared/${CLOUDFLARED_TUNNEL_ID}.json /etc/cloudflared/${CLOUDFLARED_TUNNEL_ID}.json
  mv ~/.cloudflared/cert.pem /etc/cloudflared/cert.pem
  echo "
  tunnel: $(CLOUDFLARED_TUNNEL_ID)
  credentials-file: /etc/cloudflared/$(CLOUDFLARED_TUNNEL_ID).json
  ingress:
    - hostname: tester.example.com
      service: http://localhost:8000
    - service: 'http_status:404'
  " >> /etc/cloudflared/config.yaml

dns
───

Now to get a dns record for tester.example.com to point to the cloudflared tunnel.

[code]
  cloudflared tunnel route dns $(CLOUDFLARED_TUNNEL_ID) tester.example.com

systemd
───────

Now install the systemd service.

[code]
  sudo cloudflared service install

[code]
  sudo systemctl status cloudflared.service
  # if its not running
  sudo systemctl start cloudflared.service