Cloudflare Tunnel + Cloudflared SSH to Home Server #

🏠 Part 1: On Your Home Server (Do this once) #

1. Create the Tunnel:

• Go to Cloudflare Zero Trust → Networks → Tunnels → Create a Tunnel.
  • Name it (e.g., home-ssh) and click Next.

2. Install the Agent:

• Copy the exact command Cloudflare gives you for your server’s OS.
  • Paste it into your home server’s terminal and run it.
  • Wait until the website says “Connected” (Green), then click Next.

3. Route the Traffic:

• Subdomain: your-subdomain (e.g. myssh)
  • Domain: example.com
  • Type: Published application
  • URL: localhost:22
  • Click Save Tunnel.

💻 Part 2: On Your Laptop (Every time you are away from home) #

Option A: The One-Line Way #

Set this up once, and you will never have to remember annoying Cloudflare commands again.

1. Install cloudflared on your laptop.
2. Open your laptop’s SSH config file.

• On Mac/Linux, open terminal and type: nano ~/.ssh/config
  • On Windows, open the file at: C:\Users\YourName.ssh\config

3. Paste these exact 2 lines at the bottom of the file and save it:

Host yoursubdomain.example.com ProxyCommand cloudflared access ssh –hostname %h

4. To Connect: Just type this single, standard command anytime you want to log in:

ssh [email protected]

Option B: The Manual Way (If you don’t want to change config files) #

Warning: Requires keeping two separate terminal windows open.

1. Window 1 (The Bridge): Run this command to open the tunnel gate (leave this window open!):

cloudflared access ssh –hostname yoursubdomain.example.com –url localhost:2222

2. Window 2 (The Connection): Open a brand new terminal window and jump into your server:

ssh username@localhost -p 2222