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Cloudflare Tunnel

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description Cloudflare Tunnel Overview

While not strictly a DNS *resolver*, Cloudflare Tunnel fundamentally changes how services are exposed, often bypassing traditional DNS record management for connectivity. It creates secure, outbound connections from your network to the internet without opening inbound firewall ports. This is a massive security upgrade for modern web applications, making DNS management less about IP pointing and more about secure service discovery.

help Cloudflare Tunnel FAQ

Does Cloudflare Tunnel replace opening ports on my router?

Yes, that is one of its main uses. The cloudflared connector makes outbound connections from your server to Cloudflare, so you can publish a service without inbound port forwarding.

Is Cloudflare Tunnel the same thing as changing an A record?

No. A normal A record points a hostname at an IP address, while a Cloudflare Tunnel routes traffic through a named tunnel, often using a CNAME-style target managed by Cloudflare.

Can Cloudflare Tunnel expose SSH or only websites?

It can expose HTTP services and also support private access patterns for SSH, RDP, SMB, and other protocols through Cloudflare One features. For browser-visible websites, the common setup is a public hostname mapped to a local service like localhost:3000.

What runs on my machine when I use Cloudflare Tunnel?

The local connector is cloudflared, Cloudflare's tunnel daemon. It can run as a service on Linux, macOS, Windows, Docker, or Kubernetes depending on the deployment.

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