How to use Cloudflare Tunnel in your Homelab (even with Traefik)

[@rbdconstantine3293]

I would so love to meet this guy and be best friends with him and every time I watch his videos I feel so influenced to dive into technology more and more it’s crazy!

[@christianlempa]

This is such a nice compliment! Thank you buddy :)

[@GrimSpec]

Right :) "Evening conversations over beer at a pub" with Jeff Geerling, Timothy Stewart and Lewis Barclay

[@jasenwar]

It’s ze accent for meee!!!

[@Andreas360dk]

I would just love to have friends to nerd talk with. I work in IT and I am not even sure my colleagues know what Docker is. IT in my country is influenced too much by our education system that still teaches token ring, WIC-2A/S ports for data between routers. Even our vendors that deliver software/web solutions act confused if I ask them what programming languages they use e.g Python, GO, Rust, PHP like they have not even heard of anything besides Visual Basics 2000 The closet I think I have is my engineer friends who are very up to date :) Sorry for the semi rant guys. Have a nice weekend :D

[@shiftrip]

I took up web hosting as a hobby project and have watched so many videos... none of them did what you do at 12:19 by simply adding the container name as URL. Would've never found that out on my own. Absolutely fantastic video!

[@christianlempa]

Thank you so much! Glad you liked it :)

[@RedVegas]

You saved my day I couldn’t thank you enough for figuring out you have to include both domain names in the traefik label I was stuck for hours.

[@christianlempa]

Awesome! Thank you

[@oseikwamejones9019]

Thanks Senior, after wandering around, you solved my problem easily. Am here for good!

[@christianlempa]

Glad I could help!

[@henrysowell]

I would love to see a video on the authentication recommendation and setup! Great video!

[@christianlempa]

Thank you!

[@dankkster]

@@christianlempa yes! I have authelia set up and I cannot get it to work with anything other than the local domain setup. It does not work at all for the cloudflare tunnel portion of the rule. :( If there is a suggestion on how to do that, I am all ears as I have been trying for about 2 days now.

[@dankkster]

i was able to get it working finally lol

[@ronkierstead]

I watched this to learn more about the access control feature for self hosted, and that wildcard "*" was the answer I was looking for. Thank you!

[@whiteout6000]

ich wurde schon bekloppt mit vaultwarden und reverse proxy - mit cloudflare gehts so easy - DANKE !! du hast mir den feiertag gerettet

[@AnthWinter]

The videos on your channel have helped SO much! Any idea/question I've had, you seem to always have a video for it with answers. Awesome stuff.

[@christianlempa]

Thank you so much! I'm glad the channels helps you :)

[@darrenoshaughnessy3921]

PERFECT Timing! I've been using CloudFlare tunnel on my server for a while, but decided to do a cleanup/consolidation on my Docker networks. Realized I had used the command line to set the tunnel up originally, but wanted to set up a stack in Portainer to handle future updates. Everything I need was in the tutorial (BTW - I think there might be a typo in the command to set up the token). THANKS!

[@SabreToothedSam]

Can't agree more, this is perfect timining! I just setup docker and a CloudFlare tunnel for the first time on my home server. This guide has definitely showed me a few more things I'll want in my setup.

[@darrenoshaughnessy3921]

@@SabreToothedSam this guide showed me a few things I had to FIX in my setup - Christian's videos are the best 👍

[@warpdotdev]

This is a great video, Christian! Thank you for shouting out Warp in the beginning 👍

[@EduardoSantanaSeverino]

Excellent, exactly what I was waiting for.

[@christianlempa]

Great to hear! I hope you like it! :)

[@Theborg72]

hey saw a clip before on this and started to look around a bit. but you are doing much better and looking forward to your clips. Has helped a lot to get ahead and also got answers to many questions.

[@christianlempa]

Thank you 😊

[@coolioinglesias8753]

Damn, you fixed my life with the tip of adding the double pipe for the logical OR instruction

[@thiagobarrichelo]

Hey buddy , thanks a lot for this exclellent tutorial. Your tshoot demonstrating the need for both fqdn's in the Traefik Ingress Route saved me a good deal of time to figure out why setup wasn't working. You're the best thanks a lot!!!👍😀

[@christianlempa]

Glad it was helpful

[@ArthurOnline]

Yes! Yes! Yes! on the Cloudflare video, absolutely would love to go deeper, thank you

[@1983Jedis]

As always, you are on top 👍

[@christianlempa]

Thanks! 😃

[@damyanmp]

amazing! The 404 cost me HOURS! I couldn't figure out why it's re-routing traffic externally but not internally in the cluster. Made the same change as you did but not with labels per service, instead added a route in the ingress. 10 seconds of gold

[@christianlempa]

Haha, it did cost me ~4 hours, too! 😂 but glad we could sort it out :)

[@codester_d]

Been using this setup for months now. Setting up Cloudflare access to use authentik for the oidc was pretty straightforward.

[@v-for-victory]

Christian, your Videos get better and better. This is such a good explanation of this complex, I can only say Wow. Well done. 👍

[@christianlempa]

Thank you so much 😊

[@s3rgio340]

That's amazing. I have a network with the same setup, and I couldn't manage to get to work cloudfare tunnels + traefik. Thanks a lot for sharing!

[@christianlempa]

You’re welcome :)

[@qoutwest]

Digging the new earthy background!

[@GrimSpec]

Awesome! Thank you, Christian, again for the great motivation :D Every time I watch your videos, I feel inspired to implement your techniques into my own homelab or at least start experimenting with them. By the way, I would be more than glad to hear your recommendations for securing access to exposed services through these tunnels. Cheers!

[@try-that]

Have to say, that was probably the best video I've watched on CF tunnels, very nicely explained 😁

[@christianlempa]

Thank you so much, what a nice statement! :)

[@stefantest5320]

How to get Android apps working on the smartphone? Like Nexcloud or Synology apps. Because of the login screen for 1-time password or verification...

[@cloud2050]

Great video! Can you do an in-depth video covering those settings in the cloudflare zero trust for exposing web application? How to allow mobile app api access while locking down web access.

[@drbyte2009]

Again a great and very clear video Christian !

[@toolbelt]

Thank you for this and all of your videos. Fantastic.

[@christianlempa]

Thank you for this feedback! :)

[@la3135]

Awesome video Christian!

[@christianlempa]

Thx!

[@TapiTapiTap]

@cristian Thanks for the amazing guides I whould love to see you setup and configure authentik with truenas scale seems there are not guides on this subject and will be very populat as a replacement for authellia that is complex to setup and manage

[@completelyMT]

Great video. Would love to see a video on setting up the various authentication methods and creating better policies for self hosted apps (including allowing API access to them). Thanks heaps

[@gerard-infopro6601]

It would be interesteing to see how works with RPD, or CIFS/SMB works

[@EduardoSantanaSeverino]

It would be nice to see a video about the authentication, Because, For example, if I setup the nextcloud using the tunnel, and I enabled the one time pin authentication, then, I am not sure if the nextcloud mobile application would still connect to this nextcloud instance, as the end point would be protected by one time pin, probably the mobile app would fail to connect. Thanks for your comments.

[@EduardoSantanaSeverino]

I was able to setup SSH access, and it works like a charm.

[@RuanBekker]

Great video! (As always) 🎉

[@christianlempa]

🙏 thanks

[@nickswebtsv]

I literally just worked out how to do this myself last weekend. Good to see if what I was doing is what everyone does with integrating Cloudflared and Traefik.

[@christianlempa]

Nice! I knew I was doing it right :D

[@metromanu]

what if the self hosted setup includes both Træfik and Authelia? Is there something different to be done there? I can reach a simple Nginx container in the same network, but when I try to reach containers behind Træfik and Authelia, I cannot seem to reach them. Thanks for the great videos!

[@christianlempa]

Haven't tried it with Authelia, yet.

[@dankkster]

@@christianlempa This would be great to know how to do

[@danyalt8221]

Hey Christian, Thank you for the valuable insights you share on your KZbin channel. I have a question: Is it possible to forgo Traefik's SSL termination mechanism and instead utilize Cloudflare's HTTPS termination service to manage our certificates? I'm curious about the advantages of integrating Traefik's DNS challenge with Cloudflare, especially when we have the option to enable Cloudflare's free SSL/TLS. Thanks.

[@szymonagiewka4513]

CF Tunnel is what I'm using to expose my Matrix and Mastodon servers endpoint so they can federate. Otherwise I still prefer accessing stuff via Tailscale (which BTW recently added Tailscale Funnel). But Cloudflare is a different kind of beast if you want to combine Warp with Tunnel or Warp-to-Warp, but I digress 😃

[@gmsipe]

I agree and just switched from CF tunnel to Tailscale/traefik. It's simpler, faster, and at least as secure.

[@ultravioletiris6241]

@@gmsipe Im learning how to set up Tailscale with Traefik. Was it difficult for you?

[@TenSpeed10]

Thank you for all your videos! I did have one question, perhaps you discussed this in another video but I missed it - can you explain your rationale and usecase for your "frontend" and "backend" networks?

[@Ohamdaoui]

Have you figured out how to do that ? I have the same question, how to create the network service backend or fronted. I have created one in portainer but it does not work.

[@agr2639]

Great video. Finding tunnels great for home use. I would like to enable more security, but can you think of a way to do this that still allows mobile apps (nextcloud) to access the tunnel? Would like to see a video about this.

[@Baku-oc5fc]

Christian, can you make some recommendations regarding how to employ "authentication providers and other security measures" due to TLS terminating at CF? What specifically have you done to mitigate this risk? Thanks!

[@deltawhiplash1614]

That's a great video I am soo excited for more videos about it about rdp with Cloudflare or access please continue your good work Could you do a video about authentification with Cloudflare access and a self-hosted IAM like Authelia or Keycloak (if possible with a user-friendly UI😅) or nether an existing active directory server

[@dankkster]

This ^^

[@MotivationalSound1818]

PERFECT!!! PERFECT!!! PERFECT!!! THANK YOU!!!

[@christianlempa]

Thank you :)

[@itdevops]

I have à question you know if this tunnel or other we can connect with same ip but différent port. Ex: yacht app like portainer, because need always change the tunnel ip:port for access 😢. Ty

[@stephenj3972]

Is it possible to combine this with authelia? When ive been trying traefik isnt pushing through authelia?

[@sheltonngwenya3281]

Hi Christian. Lovely content as usual, great work! What keyboard are you using?

[@christianlempa]

Thanks! :) Keychron K3

[@mykyar9142]

Yeah! This will be my next step!

[@christianlempa]

Nice! Let us know how it goes :)

[@mykyar9142]

@@christianlempa Update. I've bought a domain on Cloudflare. Connected it to my dedicated IP. And with configuring the firewall on the Mikrotik router I passed the traffic to my Kubernetes cluster on the Orange Pi5 boards. I'm a developer and just started to learn self-hosted Kubernetes. Danke schön for your videos! They really help me a lot!

[@TheTran-tf5ri]

Superb, many thanks 🎉

[@anarchai]

Hello, thanks for this amazing video. One question: what is the app you use to diagram on 3:13m ?

[@christianlempa]

You're welcome! That was excalidraw

[@antoninoromeo4015]

Hi great video, where can i find your video about local and external ssl and dns configuration? i like a lot that😀

[@AbstonsGarage]

What are you using to draw the details out?

[@Thewho456]

That's Excalidraw, specifically used inside Obsidian. Obsidian is a markdown editor and knowledge management app with lots of extensions, one of them is Excalidraw. Excalidraw also exists as a standalone web app.

[@ВладиславВладислав-о1г]

Hello! Great video! Can such a solution be done without a third-party service such as cloudflare? Purpose: hosting services on the open Internet without port forwarding on the router.

[@xer2964]

If I'm not mistaken here. So we don't need manually add new ingress on cloudflared tunnel dashboard ? Just label all container??

[@Paneking95]

First of all, awesome guide as always! Now, what I kind of miss is your Traefik setup. Your other video with Traefik helps, but I somehow can't get certificates from Let's Encrypt. Are your Traefik settings different when you use it with Cloudflare Tunnel?

[@vanhyr]

Hey Christian, thank you for your dedication to each video and for your great selection of new topics as well as a very intuitive explanation process. Me personally, I'm under a CGNAT on a local ISP and I'm in need to use cloudflare tunnels and its great to see that you can still use traefik for load balancing, that was a great thing you showed me with this video. I'm curious since traefik can run in the internal network, couldn't authelia be deployed with traefik inside the internal network to provide an extra 2FA layer of security? I'm also excited to learn teleport if that's a more convenient way of exposing my services than cloudflare tunnels.

[@FedericoBechini]

how I can view or monitor for example IP of the machine that connects and use my tunnel expose website? I dont see a monitor for activity on cloudfare dashboard

[@Nasenag]

Would love to know what software you are using to do the drawing at the begining of the video (around 3 min)

[@abuseifamina]

Me 2 would love to know the software please

[@Thewho456]

That's Excalidraw, specifically used inside Obsidian. Obsidian is a markdown editor and knowledge management app with lots of extensions, one of them is Excalidraw. Excalidraw also exists as a standalone web app.

[@Thewho456]

@@abuseifamina That's Excalidraw, specifically used inside Obsidian. Obsidian is a markdown editor and knowledge management app with lots of extensions, one of them is Excalidraw. Excalidraw also exists as a standalone web app.

[@kpm25]

Thanks for your great tutorial, if I have any questions where is the best place to ask?

[@christianlempa]

thank you :) join our discord if you need help

[@kpm25]

@@christianlempa thanks I do 👍

[@niravraychura]

Thank you for sharing this with us.. Quick question.. Can I use it in selfhosted mail server ?

[@christianlempa]

You're welcome! Maybe with using a TCP public host? I haven't tested it though.

[@niravraychura]

@@christianlempa I tried with hestiacp but no luck there.. May be I have to troubleshoot something. (Hestiacp because it has builtin webmail function and it can run with smtp relay easly)

[@nghiepvo4493]

hi @Christian Lempa, Thank you, I have a question, how do you install traefik plugin from Github? I also try to install it, but it's fail with invalid download

[@vasquezmi]

Hello Christian what are you using for your data / network diagrams in this video?

[@christianlempa]

excalidraw

[@Babasile]

Great video! Thanks! 😃

[@christianlempa]

Thx :)

[@AlL-fw2cy]

For someone just starting down this home lab rabbit hole would you recommend going this route for exposing services to the Internet for personal and public use or would you recommend a reverse proxy?

[@evanmarshall9498]

So, I have created the tunnel and it says it is working. I added nginx container and public hostname as you suggested. I head to that URL and it says: bad gateway at host.

[@ctyl5686]

Great video - thank you. Have you been able to use a Cloudflare Tunnel to access Apache Guacamole?

[@mediocreDevops]

What's that application that has docker and kube environment at 0:14, TIA

[@carlosfranco6029]

Portainer

[@HirschyKiss]

Hey Christian, just wanted to point out that your zsh history prefiller may have leaked a production token. I'm sure you probably noticed and it's all good, but just wanted to let you know

[@devingray1761]

Do you know how to get portainer itself running behind traefik? I have my cloudflare tunnel and traefik connected but Portainer is the only one not working.

[@christianlempa]

I will have to update my templates at some point to add the portainer configs for traefik, but that probably will need to wait until early next year. Check out the github.com/ChristianLempa/boilerplates for updates!

[@XD-Luke]

Hi Chris, many thanks for the detailed instructions. As always, very well explained. I wanted to ask which tool you used to create the sketches... always makes the one or other system structure a little clearer 😉, thanks in advance, greetings

[@christianlempa]

I think it was excalidraw at that time

[@justturner-DOA]

Great Videos! I have created a tunnel in the past for Plex, but recently when attempting to do so, I noticed that the localhost now ends with /web. Normally its localhost:port, but now localhost:port/web to access plex locally. Do you know how we can now tunnel with the /web, or even other's that have /ui?

[@joshuatheoder2196]

Hey Christian, I tried setting up a public hostname to my local proxmox management IP, I get the cloudflare bad gateway error (host) and does it matter that the ''Origin Configurations" on the public hostnames page shows 0? Come a long way watchin your videos!

[@joshuatheoder2196]

Some more info, I've installed the cloudflare tunnel on a promox Ubuntu server VM using the copy paste docker command.

[@dankkster]

@@joshuatheoder2196 same here, I get a 502 error as well but the local link works fine

[@kingkong-kw8jr]

youre such a amazing guy

[@christianlempa]

Thx xD

[@carlosgarcia1165]

hi there, thank you for the videos!!! Where can I find the dashboard you are using?

[@christianlempa]

I think I used github.com/bastienwirtz/homer at that time; however, I just migrated to another dashboard gethomepage.dev/

[@MehranZiadloo]

Thanks a lot. It worked like a charm with TrueNAS Scale as well (TrueCharts).

[@christianlempa]

Thank you 🙏

[@MehranZiadloo]

@@christianlempa Question: I've successfully installed the TailScale on my TrueNAS Scale and I can ping it using the IP TailScale is assigning to it. But when I add that same IP as an alias to network interface and then set that IP as the Kubernetes' Node IP, I cannot access my apps through VPN. I'm trying to make it so whenever I'm connected to the VPN, I can use my TrueNAS Scales apps. Do you know how I can make this work?

[@Rockshoes1]

Please closer look at the cloudflare authentication settings

[@cheebadigga4092]

Great video! I would've really liked to see the deal with those private networks you can setup in Zero Trust. Not sure if the WARP client thing is the same as a simple custom WireGuard container/VM.

[@danienell5248]

Any advice on allowing access to Postgres via Cloudflare tunnel??

[@byander]

I need too

[@virtualizeeverything]

i would look to have a look at the settings

[@gowthamsurya9655]

Hello Christian, I am using container name as URL in public hostname section. But it doesn't work. Only docker network IP work for me. Can i know why ? Please..

[@michaelbobarev]

What’s the software you use while creating diagrams document in real time ? Thanks !

[@planeetpaul]

I'd love to know this as well!

[@dionelysterrero756]

The home assistant does not work and I have added the ips of the proxy servers. What can be the problem?

[@NoBodyDroid]

What is the app thet you used to draw in 3:00

[@nabukodonosor777]

If I use the container name, I get Bad gateway error. My containers are on the same network. If I use IP, it's ok. Any ideas?

[@FedericoBechini]

how to expose only certain urls from the server and not all endpoints from the server?

[@rayshadow6796]

How do I connect the new tunnels with nginx proxy manager?

[@anasfrh]

This might be a silly question. Can I use a domain that I own which points to a Wordpress website for example with this solution?

[@christianlempa]

Sure you can do that

[@Glatze603]

Hi Christian, thanks for your good work on this nice topic! I use cloudflared on a separate ubuntu server in my dmz as connector. The publishing services are running on other servers (and dockers) in separate vlans. I only allow the configured ports, protocols and target-server in my firewall, so that other communication from tdmz to other internal networks isn´t allowed. One advantage over teleport is, that I do not need a cloud-server. Another point is, that cloudflare offers a kind of application firewall on top to the 2fa login, so access to my applications is further narrowed down. The other side is, that in this case we have to trust in cloudflare. I also like it to self host applications and solutions, so I would be happy if you make another video about teleport, how to install, configure and use it. Thanks a lot 🙂

[@SpookyLurker]

I'd like more information on the "frontend" and "backend" networks. Seems some crucial information is missing..?

[@christianlempa]

It's not that spectacular, they're basically two separate custom docker networks that i'm using :D

[@Voigt_Analytics]

Interessanter Ansatz! Wieder ein Pluspunkt für Traefik. Würde aber sehr gerne beim NPM bleiben, da ich nicht alles in Docker-Containern habe mir der händische Weg mit GUI irgendwie besser gefällt. Bin nun dazu übergegangen eine separate Domain für Cloudflare Tunnel zu nehmen und eine andere, die weiterhin klassisch mit DynDNS läuft, für den Fall, dass Cloudflare mal nicht als Option in Frage kommt. Nur wie mache ich das mit Nextcloud AIO o.Ä. wo die Domain hardgecoded festgelegt ist? Da funktioniert der OR-Operator || vermutlich nicht? Bin hier noch etwas überfragt. Besonders Nextcloud möchte man ja auch lokal mit Daten bespielen, ohne gleich alles durchs Internet schieben zu müssen.

[@mrshahram7]

Hi can you make a video for using cloudflare to have access to our SMB server, FTP and SSH from internet? 😢

[@brijeshdave]

Which local dns server do you use ? Please suggest some with gui

[@frederickwood9116]

Thanks for this. Fantastic material. Your linked video on docker networks was great also. However! 😂. It never explains your use and configuration of the backend and frontend networks. Where is that covered?

[@faster_than_bugs]

This looks so convenient and easier to setup compared to the traditional port forwarding method ! I'll definitely look into CF tunnels.

[@christianlempa]

Nice! :D Hope it works great for you

[@JanAssmannRecklinghausen]

Christian, great video. Helped me a lot as always. Your approach can be an option for me, because I just wanted to make my homelab services available for me and my family in the internet. But I think it would not work if I'm using e.g. an android app in combination with an authentification service? How do I expose non docker services, e.g. in a lxc container or vm?

[@christianlempa]

Thank you! :) You can expose any service, just use the right URL or IP in the target config

[@JanAssmannRecklinghausen]

@@christianlempa but how would a authentification service work, if you don't open your webservice via browser but with a native mobile app? (e.g. smart home apps, bitwarden ..)

[@Alcatraz2k]

@@JanAssmannRecklinghausen I think the app would need to support custom headers. Some do, some don't - for example nzb360 doesn't but Lunasea does

[@JanAssmannRecklinghausen]

@@Alcatraz2k I tried this approach with openhab, now. Unfortunately the app does not work with the authentification service activated, even if you first authentificate in the browser and then open the app. The rest works as charme.

[@JanAssmannRecklinghausen]

​@@christianlempa I'm searching for a possiblity to get my openhab app running in an external network in a secured way. I tried the cloudflare approach, but without authentification service it is not secured and with an activated service the app does not work. I watched your Teleport video. But I think this is even not a working solution here. What would you recommend? Use just the openhab authentification method without any authentification service or are there other options?

[@scubeedu2]

Hi Chrisitan: Got this working fine so long as everything is running inside the same docker container as Traefik. Is it a simple process to have Traefik function across multiple docker containers on different machines? I have programs on other servers that I would like to proxy, but Traefik cannot see them.

[@chriswilson2987]

I want to know if you can run traefik and cloudflare with the same subdomains? I’m guessing i’d need to create a record on a local DNS server to point at Traefik (instead of Cloudflare) ?

[@christianlempa]

You can use the same domain, check out my bind9 video there I’ve explained the setup and also mentioned the „split-horizon“ setup

[@ewfzappadis]

Hello , first of all, let me thank you (from France) for the excellence of your videos. As a total noob, . I followed your video on creating a tunnel with Cloudflare and it worked very well, but today my two tunnels are down and I can't find any explanation anywhere. Do you have any suggestions for me? Thanks for everything you do.

[@christianlempa]

Thanks mate! Join our discord and share some details about your setup and logs, maybe we can help you :)

[@Jinx_Cole]

If I were to self host a game server like "Project Zomboid" in a container on my ProxMox server would CloudFlare Tunnel be a good option to secure my Homelab. Or would somthing like this introduce too much latency. I have only ever seen people using this service with things that aren't that effected by latency.

[@belfakiraberrahim5427]

You're really help me . ❤

[@christianlempa]

Glad it was helpful :)

[@SeanAnthony]

Christian what's apps are ruuning on your Frontend and Backend custom networks? Can I place the CF Tunnnel on a different machine and still access custom networks (using DNS names instead of IP address) when setting up public hostnames in Cloudflare?

[@christianlempa]

The custom network is needed to allow dns resolution, but you could actually just use 1 custom network

[@SeanAnthony]

@@christianlempa can Portainer use a custom network or is it stuck to use “bridge” network?

[@nicoladellino8124]

Very nice video, THX.

[@christianlempa]

Thanks bro :)