EXPOSE your home network to the INTERNET!! (it's safe)

In this video, NetworkChuck will show you how to install and use Cloudflare Tunnel, the best way to expose and access your home lab resources from the internet. Traditionally, you would use a reverse proxy like Nginx Proxy Manager or Traefik to expose your home lab resources, but this involved forwarding ports 80 and 443 through your firewall. (not safe). With Cloudflare Tunnel, you don’t need to forward anything!! Cloudflare will create a secure tunnel to your home network and allow you to create a subdomain that securely points to a resource in your home network. This includes an SSL certificate for EVERY subdomain automatically!!

**Sponsored by Red Hat

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0:00 ⏩ Intro
0:08 ⏩ What is Cloudflare Tunnel?
0:50 ⏩ What do you need?
1:26 ⏩ You should use RHEL.
3:38 ⏩ STEP 1 - Setup your Domain Name
3:53 ⏩ STEP 2 - Setup a FREE Cloudflare Account
5:19 ⏩ STEP 3 - Create a Cloudflare Tunnel
6:52 ⏩ setup your first pubic hostname

AFFILIATES & REFERRALS
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(GEAR I USE...STUFF I RECOMMEND)

#Cloudflare #CloudflareTunnel #homelab

[JustMortHandle]

Remember to use updated software, even if the tunnel is safe, doesn't mean the software you're running is!
And use good, unique passwords on your internal stuff when doing this!

[geekacullen]

Brother, I have been trying to learn how to expose things to the outside for a week now and have had trouble wrapping my head around how this works. I have researched so much and every tutorial lacks in giving good info that will work for anyone. You have finally given me that last piece of the puzzle and I get it now. Thank you! Keep doing you. You have helped and effected "At Least" 1 person today.

[wagnonforcolorado]

Thanks for the concise tutorial. Tunnels created for a couple of my home lab servers in about 4 minutes. I noticed the RHEL offer for devs before this video came out, and now have another ISO available to spin up and practice on. Thanks for the content, I am learning a lot from you and your videos.

[eric_b_]

I want to offer some gratitude: I've been watching your videos for years now and you're an absolute networking stud. I appreciate your videos and content so much. I've had n+ cert since 2002, but when I need to brush up on any networking I go to YouTube and type network chuck + whatever it is I'm looking to do. Today it was "network chuck vpn tunnel". Your channel single handedly adds a ton of value to YouTube. Cheers Network Chuck!

[Jwalk]

I just want to say, thanks! Your videos have opened my mind to everything that is possible with a home networking that I had more or less just been ignoring because I thought the functionality was beyond my hobby's reach. In just the last few weeks I've implemented may things you've scratched the surface on so many powerful and secure ways!!

[ciaduck]

RedHat spons! You've really made it to the big time! :D

This is a great thing to have in your pocket for home servers. I like the idea of everything going through cloudflare and not exposing your home IP address.

[GWFO]

Was amazing meeting you Mr Chuck Thanks for all the tutorials you've taught me so much, looking forward to the future and I can't wait to pass on all I've learnt, KEEP IT UP!

[celticwarrior]

Thank you, Chuck. Your videos are top notch. Clear, quick and concise. It always seems you post a video on things I am currently struggling with figuring out. You're a legend.

[CharliePearce]

Sorry, I hate to be that guy but I think you are stretching the definition of "completely secure" here. If the application you are running has vulnerabilities or weak authentication then even with Cloudflare's firewall are in real danger here. Some of the apps you are exposing will get you a root shell on your home network out the box - Proxmox being a prime example. I think that needed explaining and also talk about access control options.

[Myspearmintz]

You are a life saver. I've been playing with Cloudflare tunnel ever since I setup uptime kuma and I tried to setup a tunnel for portainer too but I'm a total noob and didn't think to change the TLS verify setting. I literally have been trying to figure it out for days and you just solved my issue in under 10 minutes! You rock!

[ariannaalvarenga]

Bro, we just did it and it works like a charm for our use case. We can't believe that this is exactly what we needed because our ISP sucks... We appreciated greatly, you're cracked!

[digifanatic]

I'm SO glad you did this video! I've been using CF for my domain that points to internal resources, and it was bothering me that I had to keep using port numbers in the URLs since I'm using a DDNS service. This fixed that, and I'm so stoked! I love that I keep learning something new about this industry 15 years in.

[Matt-cxfg]

The one thing I was missing, was an additional security check before you get to the services. You can configure that in Cloudflare as well. I.e. a pin code check sent only to allowed email addresses.

[michaeljolley]

I love that he makes it so easy to do all of this at home. I am an ABSOLUTE noob to this but getting into the game now and thanks to this guy and a couple of others my smart home and network is getting to be on point.

Plus gotta love this dudes attitude!

[cyberdevil]

Chuck, you are a hero!
I was very frustrated when my isp was flipping about the whole port forward thing.
SO THANK YOU!
I was bugged with this problem ever since they implied this new rule for port-forwarding

[carl_thunder]

Set this up via Argo tunnel about a year ago and migrated over to zero trust once it became available so I can edit my tunnels via the GUI. It’s been solid! Love it.

[HomelabTim]

The one thing I love about your change in video style is the SPEED!!!

Your videos are awesome and no longer made for the noob like this video you need a basic understanding of docker and containers before doing this :)

Also side note this is something I did along time ago using the command line and now with the docker added it’s 100x easier !!! Great video keep up the good work :)

[ImARichard]

Awesome video! I love all the amazing free features that cloudflare offers.


For the noobs out there it is worth noting that while the connection aspect is safe, and the threat of DDOS attacks is relatively mitigated, exposing any service to the internet is still a risk. For instance if your NAS software has a vulnerability in it that hasn't been patched, exposing it to the internet through any means could give attackers a way to exploit the vulnerability. Anything you expose to the internet from your homelab needs to stay up to date with the latest security patches! And of course the age old practice of only exposing services and hardware that absolutely needs to be exposed to achieve your goals is, in my opinion, the best way to do things.

[dangerfoxgaming]

Thanks for taking rhe time to make and share your videos. They are both informative and fun! I think one of the things I like best about your channel is that you show different ways to tackle problems. It's important for any IT person to have knowekdge of a variety of solutions so they can make an informed choice about which best applies to the situation at hand. Your videos add to that knowledge toolbox. Well done! Time for some coffee. 👍

[Dramscus]

I've watched numerous dedicated 30 minute long tutorials to get this same thing running on my unraid server by channels making content specifically for unraid servers and this 10 minute video for generalized use just worked. Thank you Chuck!