Cloudflared TCP

• This is a cloudflared-tcp cli tool to manage multiple local client-side connection.
• This avoid running access multiple TCP connection and running them in individual Terminal Tab.

prerequisites

• For this demo, you must already setup cloudflared tunnel in your server from where you want to expose TCP connection.
• Must install cloudflared cli in the client system.

Installation:

• We can install using debian file from Github releases.

• OR

  curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TheSpiritMan/Cloudflared-TCP/main/install.sh | bash

  OR

  wget -qO - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TheSpiritMan/Cloudflared-TCP/main/install.sh | bash

• Config can be found in /etc/cloudflared-tcp.conf.

• Setup Cloudflared-tcp:

  cloudflared-tcp setup

• Check Status:

  cloudflared-tcp status

• List Expose TCP port:

  cloudflared-tcp list

• For Help Menu:

  cloudflared-tcp help

Deploy Postgres Deployment

• For this setup, I am deploying Postgres Container in K8s cluster. It can be anything of our choice.

• Postgres Manifest file can be found here:

• Apply Postgres:

  kubectl apply -f Manifest-Files/postgres.yaml

• Verify:

  kubectl get po,svc

  Output:

  NAME                           READY   STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
  pod/postgres-db986cfcd-4j5sv   1/1     Running   0          81s
  
  NAME                 TYPE        CLUSTER-IP    EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)    AGE
  service/kubernetes   ClusterIP   10.43.0.1     <none>        443/TCP    38h
  service/postgres     ClusterIP   10.43.96.80   <none>        5432/TCP   81s

• Install Postgresql Client:

  sudo apt update
  sudo apt install -y postgresql-client

• Test connection using ClusterIP: 10.43.96.80:

  PGPASSWORD=password psql -U user -d db -h 10.43.96.80

• On success, we will ve inside postgres shell.

Exposing Postgres DB Connection using Cloudflared Tunnel.

• We will need to add below similar hostname inside cloudlare configMap with our database connection details:

  - hostname: "postgres-db.example.com"
    service: tcp://postgres.default.svc.cluster.local:5432
    originRequest:
      noTLSVerify: false

• Here, we need to add DNS record postgres-db.example.com to cloudflared-tunnel.

• Cloudflare does NOT directly expose raw TCP publicly so we must connect through the Cloudflare Tunnel client (cloudflared) locally.

• Install cloudflared cli into system. More details can be found in this link:

  # Add cloudflare gpg key
  sudo mkdir -p --mode=0755 /usr/share/keyrings
  curl -fsSL https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-main.gpg | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/cloudflare-main.gpg >/dev/null
  
  # Add this repo to your apt repositories
  # Stable
  echo 'deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/cloudflare-main.gpg] https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflared jammy main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/cloudflared.list
  # Nightly
  echo 'deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/cloudflare-main.gpg] https://next.pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflared jammy main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/cloudflared.list
  
  # install cloudflared
  sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y cloudflared

• Exposing Postgres Service to local network, here port can be any from our choice:

  cloudflared access tcp --hostname postgres-db.example.com --url localhost:15432

Note: We have to keep open this tab for all the connection.

• Connecting to Postgres Service:

  PGPASSWORD=password psql -U user -d db -h localhost -p 15432

• If we intend to expose more TCP connection then we will have to follow same process:

  • First add hostname in cloudflared configmap.
  • Modify DNS Record in Cloudflare (if needed).
  • Expose TCP locally using cloudflared cli.
  • Connect to TCP port using application.

• Repeatedly this same command in client side is painful. So have create a cli too capable of during that.