Local machine as a web server without public IP using Cloudflare tunnel(part-1)

we can use our local machine as a public webserver using Cloudflare tunnel. you do not need any public IP.

Prerequisites

1. PC or laptop
2. you need a public domain(possible without a domain)
3. Cloudflare account

Cloudflare Tunnel
Cloudflare Tunnel provides you with a secure way to connect your resources to Cloudflare without a publicly routable IP address. With Tunnel, you do not send traffic to an external IP — instead, a lightweight daemon in your infrastructure (‘cloudflared’) creates outbound-only connections to Cloudflare’s global network. Cloudflare Tunnel can connect HTTP web servers, SSH servers, remote desktops, and other protocols safely to Cloudflare

Step-1(Install OS)

I use Ubuntu OS in my daily work. So I installed an Ubuntu server on my laptop which I will use as a server machine. You can also use another OS (ubuntu-desktop, Mac OS, windows). after installation, you have to ensure that you connect to the internet, after setup internet your machine is ready to serve as web-server.

Step-2(Connect your domain with cloudflare)

Create a Cloudflare account. after sign up then login in Cloudflare account. After login, you will redirect to the dashboard .From dashboard click add a site button. then enter your domain and submit then you will see name-server ,this name-serve add to your domain registered dashboard.

Congratulations your domain and cloudflare are connected now.

Step-3(Install cloudflare in your linux machine)

• Add Cloudflare’s package signing key:

sudo mkdir -p --mode=0755 /usr/share/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-main.gpg | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/cloudflare-main.gpg >/dev/null

• Add Cloudflare’s apt repo to your apt repositories:

echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/cloudflare-main.gpg] https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflared $(lsb_release -cs) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/cloudflared.list

• Update repositories and install cloudflared:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install cloudflared

After successfully install Cloudflare check

cloudflared -v

Installing process for other OS - Download And Install

Step-4(Create Tunnel and use)

1. Authenticate cloudflared

sudo cloudflared tunnel login

After this command you will be redirected to your Cloudflare account otherwise you will get a link, then you will use this link after you will see list of domain which you attach on your cloudflare account . i selected my domain iamalamin.com .
after selected youru domain it will create cert.pem file to your machine /root/.cloudflared/ directorey

2. Create cloudflare tunnel

sudo cloudflared tunnel create <NAME>

after this command you will get a tunnel.this tunnel has <Tunnel-UUID> which is store in /root/.cloudflared/ directory with <Tunnel-UUID>.json

sudo cloudflared tunnel list

show tunnel list in your machine

3. Create configure file for my tunnel

In your /root/.cloudflared directory, create a config.yml file using any text editor. This file will configure the tunnel to route traffic from a given origin to the hostname of your choice.

tunnel: <Tunnel-UUID>
credentials-file: /root/.cloudflared/<Tunnel-UUID>.json

ingress:
  - hostname: example-app.com
    service: http://localhost:3000
    originRequest:
      noTLSVerify: true

  - service: http_status:404

Here service: http://localhost:3000 this is your local application running url.

4. Start routing traffic

Now assign a CNAME record that points traffic to your tunnel subdomain:

sudo cloudflared tunnel route dns <Tunnel-UUID> <your-domain-name>

After this command a CNAME record will be created in your Cloudflare account domain dashboard.When I visited Cloudflare dashboard's Websites > your-domain.com > DNS > Records I saw that a new CNAME record is added in my domain's DNS record. This was added by the command I run.

5. Run the tunnel

sudo cloudflared tunnel run <Tunnel-UUID or NAME>

You need to always run this command to access your application using this tunnel.

6. Run Cloudflared as a service

To always run your Cloudflare you can use Cloudflare service on your machine.

sudo cloudflared service install
sudo systemctl start cloudflared
sudo systemctl status cloudflared

Now your application will run from your local machine publicly using cloudflare tunnel