Cloudflare Tunnel Client
Cloudflare Tunnel provides a secure way to connect your resources to Cloudflare without a publicly routable IP address. The cloudflared client establishes outbound-only connections between your services and the Cloudflare edge, ensuring your origin stays protected while still being accessible through Cloudflare.
Core Features
- Zero Trust Security: No need to expose inbound ports on your firewall
- Simple Deployment: Available as binaries, packages, and Docker images
- Flexible Routing: Route traffic via DNS, Load Balancers, or private networks
- TCP Tunneling: Support for HTTP, TCP and UDP protocols
- Authenticated Connections: Secure credential-based authentication
- High Availability: Multiple tunnels can be configured for redundancy
- Private Networking: Connect WARP clients directly to private resources
Common Use Cases
- Exposing web servers securely without opening firewall ports
- Providing zero-trust access to internal applications
- Creating secure remote access to SSH, RDP, and database services
- Building hybrid cloud infrastructures with private networking
- Quickly testing applications with temporary public URLs
Getting Started
- Install
cloudflaredvia package managers or direct download - Authenticate with your Cloudflare account:
cloudflared tunnel login - Create a tunnel:
cloudflared tunnel create <NAME> - Configure your tunnel in
config.yml - Connect your tunnel:
cloudflared tunnel run <NAME> - Route traffic to your tunnel via DNS records or private networks
For development environments, cloudflared also offers TryCloudflare, which provides temporary URLs for quick testing and sharing without requiring a Cloudflare account.
Cloudflare Tunnel is fully integrated with Cloudflare Zero Trust, enabling secure, authenticated access to resources without exposing them directly to the internet.
