netdata/docs/developer-and-contributor-corner/running-through-cf-tunnels.md

Running a Local Dashboard through Cloudflare Tunnels

Summary of tasks

• Make a netdata-web HTTP tunnel on the parent node, so the web interface can be viewed publicly
• Make a netdata-tcp tcp tunnel on the parent node, so it can receive tcp streams from child nodes
• Provide access to the netdata-tcp tunnel on the child nodes, so you can send the tcp stream to the parent node
• Make sure the parent node uses port 19999 for both web and tcp streams
• Make sure that the child nodes have mode = none in the [web] section of the netdata.conf file, and destination = tcp:127.0.0.1:19999 in the [stream] section of the stream.conf file

Detailed instructions with commands and service files

• Install the cloudflared package on all your Netdata nodes, follow the repository instructions here

• Login to cloudflare with sudo cloudflared login on all your Netdata nodes

Parent node: public web interface and receiving stats from Child nodes

• Create the HTTP tunnel
  sudo cloudflared tunnel create netdata-web
• Start routing traffic
  sudo cloudflared tunnel route dns netdata-web netdata-web.my.domain

• Create a service by making a file called /etc/systemd/system/cf-tun-netdata-web.service and input:

  [Unit]
  Description=cloudflare tunnel netdata-web
  After=network-online.target
  
  [Service]
  Type=simple
  User=root
  Group=root
  ExecStart=/usr/bin/cloudflared --no-autoupdate tunnel run --url http://localhost:19999 netdata-web
  Restart=on-failure
  TimeoutStartSec=0
  RestartSec=5s
  
  [Install]
  WantedBy=multi-user.target
  

• Create the TCP tunnel
  sudo cloudflared tunnel create netdata-tcp

• Start routing traffic
  sudo cloudflared tunnel route dns netdata-tcp netdata-tcp.my.domain

• Create a service by making a file called /etc/systemd/system/cf-tun-netdata-tcp.service and input:

  [Unit]
  Description=cloudflare tunnel netdata-tcp
  After=network-online.target
  
  [Service]
  Type=simple
  User=root
  Group=root
  ExecStart=/usr/bin/cloudflared --no-autoupdate tunnel run --url tcp://localhost:19999 netdata-tcp
  Restart=on-failure
  TimeoutStartSec=0
  RestartSec=5s
  
  [Install]
  WantedBy=multi-user.target
  

Child nodes: send stats to the Parent node

• Create a service by making a file called /etc/systemd/system/cf-acs-netdata-tcp.service and input:

  [Unit]
  Description=cloudflare access netdata-tcp
  After=network-online.target
  
  [Service]
  Type=simple
  User=root
  Group=root
  ExecStart=/usr/bin/cloudflared --no-autoupdate access tcp --url localhost:19999 --tunnel-host netdata-tcp.my.domain
  Restart=on-failure
  TimeoutStartSec=0
  RestartSec=5s
  
  [Install]
  WantedBy=multi-user.target
  

You can edit the configuration file using the edit-config script from the Netdata config directory.

• Edit netdata.conf and input:

  [web]
  mode = none
  

• Edit stream.conf and input:

  [stream]
  destination = tcp:127.0.0.1:19999
  

Restart the Agents, and you are done!

You should now be able to have a Local Dashboard that gets its metrics from Child instances, running through Cloudflare tunnels.

Note

You can find the origin of this page in this discussion in our Discord server.

We thought it was going to be helpful to all users, so we included it in our docs.