Cloudflare Tunnel on Windows

When developing locally, you often want to preview or share your application over the internet. This guide walks through how to use Cloudflare Tunnel to expose your local server (like a Next.js project running on localhost:3000) using a secure custom subdomain.

✅ Prerequisites

• A Cloudflare account
• A domain added and managed under Cloudflare DNS (e.g., yourareastupidgay.com)
• A Windows machine running a local development server (e.g., npm run dev for Next.js)

🔧 Step 1: Download and Install cloudflared

1. Go to Cloudflare Tunnel GitHub releases
2. Download cloudflared-windows-amd64.exe
3. Rename it to cloudflared.exe
4. Move it to a folder, for example: C:\cloudflared\
5. Add this folder to your System Environment Variable Path
6. Open a new terminal (CMD or PowerShell) and verify:

   cloudflared --version
   

🔐 Step 2: Authenticate Cloudflare

cloudflared tunnel login

This will open a browser window for you to log in and authorize access to your domain.

🛠️ Step 3: Create a Tunnel

cloudflared tunnel create aj-shan-tunnel

This will generate a tunnel ID and create a credentials JSON file in C:\Users\YourName\.cloudflared\.

🧾 Step 4: Create config.yml

In C:\Users\YourName\.cloudflared\, create a file named config.yml:

tunnel: aj-shan-tunnel
credentials-file: C:\Users\YourName\.cloudflared\your-tunnel-id.json

ingress:
  - hostname: aj-shan.yourareastupidgay.com
    service: http://localhost:3000
  - service: http_status:404

Make sure to replace your-tunnel-id.json with the actual filename from the .cloudflared folder.

🌐 Step 5: Map DNS

Run:

cloudflared tunnel route dns aj-shan-tunnel aj-shan.yourareastupidgay.com

This adds a CNAME record to your Cloudflare DNS settings automatically.

🚀 Step 6: Run the Tunnel

Start the tunnel (in foreground):

cloudflared tunnel run aj-shan-tunnel

Then start your local app (e.g., npm run dev) and access it via:

https://aj-shan.yourareastupidgay.com

🧠 Common Commands

🧩 Notes

• If you see logs like context canceled, they are harmless and indicate Cloudflare is rotating or retrying connections.
• You don’t need to use :3000 in the public URL, Cloudflare handles port forwarding.

Now you have a secure tunnel from the internet to your local app, all under your custom domain! 🚀