Expose Your Sentinel Server with Cloudflare Tunnel
How to securely publish a Sentinel backend running on localhost:8082 to the public internet under your custom domain (e.g. endpoint.yourdomain.com) with free automatic SSL — without port forwarding or a public static IP.
Prerequisites
- •Sentinel backend running locally on port
8082. - •A custom domain managed on a (free) Cloudflare account .
- •Windows / Linux host with Administrator / root access.
Add your domain to Cloudflare
Sign up at cloudflare.com, add your domain, and point your registrar's nameservers to Cloudflare. Wait until the domain status shows Active.
Install cloudflared CLI
Open an elevated PowerShell window and install the Cloudflare daemon using winget:
Restart PowerShell after installation and verify with: cloudflared --version
Log in and create the Tunnel
Authenticate the CLI with your Cloudflare account:
A browser window will open to select your domain and grant permissions. Next, create a named tunnel:
Copy the Tunnel ID GUID printed in the console output for the configuration step.
Route your hostname to the Tunnel
Create the Cloudflare DNS CNAME record pointing your endpoint subdomain to the tunnel:
Create configuration file
Create C:\Users\<YOU>\.cloudflared\config.yml (or ~/.cloudflared/config.yml on Linux):
Test and install as a background service
First test the tunnel in your terminal:
Verify in your browser by opening https://endpoint.your-domain.com. Once confirmed, install it to run automatically on Windows startup:
Start-Service cloudflared
Your server is now live with free automatic SSL!
Remote Sentinel Agents can now securely connect and stream heartbeat telemetry to your endpoint URL.