This guide shows you how to route your server traffic through Cloudflare Zero Trust using Docker containers.

What you'll need:

• Server (optional)
• Docker installed
• Cloudflare account

Setting up your accounts:

First, create a Cloudflare account at https://dash.cloudflare.com/sign-up?pt=f and follow the setup steps. If you don't have Docker installed yet, follow the installation guide at https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/.

Creating your Zero Trust tunnel:

If you're new to Cloudflare and Docker, Zero Trust essentially creates a secure tunnel between your containers and Cloudflare's network without exposing ports directly to the internet.

Navigate to https://dash.cloudflare.com/ (or go directly to https://one.dash.cloudflare.com/) and click on Zero Trust. Go to Networks → Tunnels and click Add a tunnel.

Follow the setup instructions, making sure to select Cloudflared instead of WARP Connector. When you reach the Install and run connectors step, select Docker as your environment.

Before running the connector command that Cloudflare provides, create a Docker network first:

docker network create tutorial

Now modify the Docker command from Cloudflare by adding the --network tutorial parameter. Your command should look like this:

docker run --network tutorial cloudflare/cloudflared:latest tunnel --no-autoupdate run --token secret_token_here

Run this command and your tunnel should connect successfully. Once connected, click on your tunnel name, select Edit, and go to Public Hostname. Choose your desired domain and path, set the type to HTTP, and for the URL use your Docker container's IP address with the appropriate port.

Important: Make sure any containers you want to route through the tunnel are on the same Docker network (tutorial in this example) as your tunnel container.