Cloudflare Tunnel
also: Argo Tunnel, cloudflared
A secure, outbound-only connection that allows you to expose local services (web servers, SSH, databases) to the internet through Cloudflare's network without opening inbound ports or exposing your IP address.
Cloudflare Tunnel (formerly Argo Tunnel) uses the cloudflared daemon to create an encrypted tunnel from your local machine or server to Cloudflare's edge network. Instead of configuring firewalls and port forwarding, you run a lightweight agent that initiates an outbound connection, which Cloudflare then routes incoming traffic through.
This approach eliminates the need for inbound firewall rules and keeps your origin server's IP address hidden from the public internet. For example, you might run cloudflared tunnel run myapp to expose a local web server on port 3000, and Cloudflare automatically handles DNS routing and HTTPS termination.
Cloudflare Tunnel is commonly used for exposing development environments, self-hosted applications, and internal services while maintaining security and hiding infrastructure details. It also enables features like authentication, DDoS protection, and WAF rules at Cloudflare's edge.