new post: caddy-tailscale-alternative-cloudflare-tunnel

content/posts/caddy-tailscale-alternative-cloudflare-tunnel/index.md

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+---
+title: "Caddy + Tailscale as an Alternative to Cloudflare Tunnel"
+date: "2024-09-22T19:12:52Z"
+# lastmod: 2024-09-22
+description: "Combining the magic of Caddy and Tailscale to serve web content from my homelab - and declaring independence from Cloudflare in the process."
+featured: false
+toc: true
+reply: true
+categories: Self-Hosting
+tags:
+  - caddy
+  - cloud
+  - containers
+  - docker
+  - networking
+  - selfhosting
+  - tailscale
+---
+Earlier this year, I [shared how I used Cloudflare Tunnel](/publish-services-cloudflare-tunnel/) to publish some self-hosted resources on the internet without needing to expose any part of my home network. Since then, I've [moved many resources to bunny.net](https://srsbsns.lol/i-just-hopped-to-bunnynet/) ([including this website](/further-down-the-bunny-hole/)). I left some domains at Cloudflare, primarily just to benefit from the convenience of Cloudflare Tunnel, but I wasn't thrilled about being so dependent upon a single company that controls so much of the internet.
+
+However a [post on Tailscale's blog this week](https://tailscale.com/blog/last-reverse-proxy-you-need) reminded me that there was another easy approach using solutions I'm already using heavily: [Caddy](/tags/caddy) and [Tailscale](/tags/tailscale). Caddy is a modern web server (that works great as a reverse proxy with automatic HTTPS), and Tailscale [makes secure networking simple](/secure-networking-made-simple-with-tailscale/). Combining the two allows me to securely serve web services without any messy firewall configurations.
+
+So here's how I ditched Cloudflare Tunnel in favor of Caddy + Tailscale.
+
+### Docker Compose config
+To keep things simple, I'll deploy the [same speedtest app I used to demo Cloudflare Tunnel](https://runtimeterror.dev/publish-services-cloudflare-tunnel/#speedtest-demo) on a Docker host located in my [homelab](/homelab).
+
+Here's a basic config to run [openspeedtest](https://github.com/openspeedtest/Docker-Image) on HTTP only (defaults to port `3000`):
+
+```yaml
+# torchlight! {"lineNumbers":true}
+services:
+  speedtest:
+    image: openspeedtest/latest
+    container_name: speedtest
+    restart: unless-stopped
+    ports:
+      - 3000:3000
+```
+
+### A Tailscale sidecar
+I can easily add [Tailscale in a sidecar container](/tailscale-serve-docker-compose-sidecar/) to make my new speedtest available within my tailnet:
+
+```yaml
+# torchlight! {"lineNumbers":true}
+services:
+  speedtest:
+    image: openspeedtest/latest
+    container_name: speedtest
+    restart: unless-stopped
+    ports: # [tl! --:1]
+      - 3000:3000
+    network_mode: service:tailscale # [tl! ++]
+
+  tailscale: # [tl! ++:12]
+    image: tailscale/tailscale:latest
+    container_name: speedtest-tailscale
+    restart: unless-stopped
+    environment:
+      TS_AUTHKEY: ${TS_AUTHKEY:?err}
+      TS_HOSTNAME: ${TS_HOSTNAME:-ts-docker}
+      TS_STATE_DIR: /var/lib/tailscale/
+    volumes:
+      - ./ts_data:/var/lib/tailscale/
+```
+
+Note that I no longer need to ask the host to expose port `3000` from the container; instead, I bridge the `speedtest` container's network with that of the `tailscale` container.
+
+And I create a simple `.env` file with the secrets required for connecting to Tailscale using a [pre-authentication key](https://tailscale.com/kb/1085/auth-keys):
+
+```shell
+# torchlight! {"lineNumbers":true}
+TS_AUTHKEY=tskey-auth-somestring-somelongerstring
+TS_HOSTNAME=speedtest
+```
+
+After a quick `docker compose up -d` I can access my new speedtest at `http://speedtest.tailnet-name.ts.net:3000`. Next I just need to put it behind Caddy.
+
+### Caddy configuration
+I already have [Caddy](https://caddyserver.com/) running on a server in [Vultr](https://www.vultr.com/) ([referral link](https://www.vultr.com/?ref=9488431)) so I'll be using that to front my new speedtest server. I add a DNS record in Bunny for `speed.runtimeterror.dev` pointed to the server's public IP address, and then add a corresponding block to my `/etc/caddy/Caddyfile` configuration:
+
+
+```text
+speed.runtimeterror.dev {
+        bind 192.0.2.1    # replace with server's public interface address
+        reverse_proxy http://speedtest.tailnet-name.ts.net:3000
+}
+```
+
+{{% notice note "Caddy binding" %}}
+Since I'm already using Tailscale Serve for other services on this server, I use the `bind` directive to explicitly tell Caddy to listen on the server's public IP address. By default, it will try to listen on *all* interfaces and that would conflict with `tailscaled` that's already bound to the tailnet-internal IP.
+{{% /notice %}}
+
+The `reverse_proxy` directive points to speedtest's HTTP endpoint within my tailnet; all traffic between tailnet addresses is already encrypted, and I can just let Caddy obtain and serve the SSL certificate automagically.
+
+Now I just need to reload the Caddyfile:
+
+```shell
+sudo caddy reload -c /etc/caddy/Caddyfile # [tl! .cmd]
+  INFO    using config from file  {"file": "/etc/caddy/Caddyfile"} # [tl! .nocopy:1]
+  INFO    adapted config to JSON  {"adapter": "caddyfile"}
+```
+
+And I can try out my speedtest at `https://speed.runtimeterror.dev`:
+
+![OpenSpeedTest results showing a download speed of 194.1 Mbps, upload speed of 147.8 Mbps, and ping of 20 ms with 0.6 ms jitter. A graph displays connection speed over time.](speedtest.png)
+
+*Not bad!*
+
+### Conclusion
+Combining the powers (and magic) of Caddy and Tailscale makes it easy to publicly serve content from private resources without compromising on security *or* extending vendor lock-in. This will dramatically simplify migrating the rest of my domains from Cloudflare to Bunny.