I’ve seen a post on here before about Cloudflare tunnels being unsafe for exposing your locally hosted services to the web which I totally get.
However I’m a bit of a noob with complex VPN set ups and I tried to get Wireguard working in Docker but couldn’t. I got a tunnel configured and exchanged all the peer keys and things but I think my initial networking docker-compose stack was incorrect possibly. Also the windows client for it is a bit ugly but that’s by the by.
I’ve also used Tailscale in the past which is great but it feels like a temporary solution to me as you still have to remember ports and things (there may be a way around that if I remember correctly but I’d rather stay away from Tailscale. I prefer having control myself or through my domain name - probably illogical I know).
Instead I decided to try to protect the Cloudflare tunnel to my home network and I’ve made a policy in Cloudflare Access that won’t let you in without emailing you a code (only my email address works) and having you enter it. I’d also rather adjust that to my 2FA app but I can’t seem to get that to work here.
My question is: is that secure enough? And if not, what would you all suggest as an alternative (preferably an alternative that is pretty easy and means I can use my domain name)?
Cloudflare is as safe as you design it to be. Once you’re tunnel is set up, you configure and access app and set up whatever rules you want. For me personally, for ultra protected stuff like my proxmox management I require warp to be in use and then an email MFA code. Along of course with my proxmox login.
This is basically my config:
wireguard:
container_name: wireguard
image: weejewel/wg-easy
volumes:
- ./data/wiregaurd:/etc/wireguard
environment:
- WG_DEFAULT_DNS=192.168.10.3
- WG_HOST=public.example.com
env_file:
- ./env/wg-easy.secrets
ports:
- 51820:51820/udp
- 51820:51820/tcp
expose:
- 51821
restart: always
cap_add:
- NET_ADMIN
- SYS_MODULE
depends_on:
- pihole
sysctls:
- net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
- net.ipv4.conf.all.src_valid_mark=1
In my case, I reverse proxy port 51821 through caddy to configure clients (with Authelia in front of it), but you could expose it interally only if you want to prevent that interface from being publicly accessible.
Note that public.example.com needs to be replaced with your connection’s public dns hostname (you can use something like duckdns for this if you want), and that you need to expose 51820 on your firewall/router. In my example above, 192.168.10.3 is the IP for pihole, and resolves some internal hostnames. You should look over the config provided once you set up a client and make sure it uses accessible hostnames, etc.
I don’t think there’s any specific reason to worry about using cloudflare tunnels over any other VPN solution, and if your connection uses NATCG, you might actually need something that tunnels out to a central hub.
I admit there is a level of trust needed in cloudflare, but I also need to trust the container makers, and the hardware manufacturers as well. I use cloudflare with O365 and jumpcloud for my auth sources and I’ve been thrilled. Different policies by subdomain, works great.
We use cloudflare tunnels in production for massive workloads at FiveM/Cfx.re, I can with 100% confidence say that I trust in it.
Only caveat is that if you have rapid scaling, CF might accidentally route to a non existent tunnel, and if that doesn’t resolve itself you will have to recreate it.
But this has only been an issue if you force shutdown some of the cloudflared instances. And only very intermittently, reproducing it has been difficult.
Cloudflare tunnels being unsafe for exposing your locally hosted services to the web
That’s the pout of Cloudflare Tunnels. It’s a reverse proxy.
Cloudflare Auth (zero trust) can lock down the tunnel so only certain people can access it.
I want to clarify something though. Cloudflare Tunnels IS SAFE. But if you choose to use it in a not safe way that’s not the fault of the tunnel.
It’s like putting on a bicycle helmet and then running on the freeway and wondering why your leg gets broken after getting hit by a car.
“but I was wearing my helmet” great, but that wasn’t the point of the helmet.