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111 lines
5.5 KiB
Markdown
111 lines
5.5 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Caddy + Tailscale as an Alternative to Cloudflare Tunnel"
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date: "2024-09-22T19:12:52Z"
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# lastmod: 2024-09-22
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description: "Combining the magic of Caddy and Tailscale to serve web content from my homelab - and declaring independence from Cloudflare in the process."
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featured: false
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toc: true
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reply: true
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categories: Self-Hosting
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tags:
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- caddy
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- cloud
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- containers
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- docker
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- networking
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- selfhosting
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- tailscale
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---
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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.
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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.
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So here's how I ditched Cloudflare Tunnel in favor of Caddy + Tailscale.
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### Docker Compose config
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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).
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Here's a basic config to run [openspeedtest](https://github.com/openspeedtest/Docker-Image) on HTTP only (defaults to port `3000`):
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```yaml
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# torchlight! {"lineNumbers":true}
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services:
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speedtest:
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image: openspeedtest/latest
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container_name: speedtest
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restart: unless-stopped
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ports:
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- 3000:3000
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```
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### A Tailscale sidecar
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I can easily add [Tailscale in a sidecar container](/tailscale-serve-docker-compose-sidecar/) to make my new speedtest available within my tailnet:
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```yaml
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# torchlight! {"lineNumbers":true}
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services:
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speedtest:
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image: openspeedtest/latest
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container_name: speedtest
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restart: unless-stopped
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ports: # [tl! --:1]
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- 3000:3000
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network_mode: service:tailscale # [tl! ++]
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tailscale: # [tl! ++:12]
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image: tailscale/tailscale:latest
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container_name: speedtest-tailscale
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restart: unless-stopped
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environment:
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TS_AUTHKEY: ${TS_AUTHKEY:?err}
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TS_HOSTNAME: ${TS_HOSTNAME:-ts-docker}
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TS_STATE_DIR: /var/lib/tailscale/
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volumes:
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- ./ts_data:/var/lib/tailscale/
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```
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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.
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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):
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```shell
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# torchlight! {"lineNumbers":true}
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TS_AUTHKEY=tskey-auth-somestring-somelongerstring
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TS_HOSTNAME=speedtest
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```
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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.
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### Caddy configuration
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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:
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```text
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speed.runtimeterror.dev {
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bind 192.0.2.1 # replace with server's public interface address
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reverse_proxy http://speedtest.tailnet-name.ts.net:3000
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}
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```
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{{% notice note "Caddy binding" %}}
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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.
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{{% /notice %}}
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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.
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Now I just need to reload the Caddyfile:
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```shell
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sudo caddy reload -c /etc/caddy/Caddyfile # [tl! .cmd]
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INFO using config from file {"file": "/etc/caddy/Caddyfile"} # [tl! .nocopy:1]
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INFO adapted config to JSON {"adapter": "caddyfile"}
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```
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And I can try out my speedtest at `https://speed.runtimeterror.dev`:
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*Not bad!*
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### Conclusion
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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.
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