Cloudflare Agent Tunnel

Give each OpenClaw agent its own secure HTTPS URL using Cloudflare Tunnel (cloudflared). No SSL certificates to manage, no ports to expose publicly. Use when setting up secure cloud access for OpenClaw agents on a VPS, assigning per-agent subdomains (koda.yourdomain.com), enabling HTTPS without nginx or Let's Encrypt, or connecting a custom domain to an agent. Covers named tunnels (permanent URL, free Cloudflare account — preferred), quick tunnels (temporary, no account), multi-agent setup on a single VPS, and custom domain configuration.

Give each OpenClaw agent a permanent, secure HTTPS URL via Cloudflare Tunnel — no SSL certs, no nginx, no open ports.

How It Works

User → https://koda.yourdomain.com
         ↓ (Cloudflare edge — TLS termination here)
       Cloudflare Tunnel (encrypted)
         ↓
       cloudflared process on VPS
         ↓
       http://localhost:18789  (OpenClaw gateway)

• Cloudflare handles TLS — no cert management on the server
• The local port never needs to be open to the internet
• Each agent gets its own cloudflared process + systemd service

---

✅ Preferred Method — Named Tunnel (Permanent, Free Cloudflare Account)

Always use this method. Gives a permanent URL tied to your domain. Requires a free Cloudflare account — takes 2 minutes to set up.

Step 1: Install cloudflared

curl -fsSL https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-main.gpg | tee /usr/share/keyrings/cloudflare-main.gpg >/dev/null
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/cloudflare-main.gpg] https://pkg.cloudflare.com/cloudflared any main" \
  | tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/cloudflared.list
apt-get update -qq && apt-get install -y cloudflared

Step 2: Authenticate — give the user this URL

Run on the VPS:

cloudflared tunnel login

This prints a Cloudflare auth URL. Give that URL to the user — they open it in their browser, log into their Cloudflare account, and click Authorize. This saves /root/.cloudflared/cert.pem on the VPS.

Poll for completion:

# Wait until cert.pem appears (user has authorized)
until [ -f /root/.cloudflared/cert.pem ]; do sleep 3; done && echo "Authorized!"

Step 3: Create the tunnel

cloudflared tunnel create openclaw-koda
# Outputs a UUID — note it
TUNNEL_UUID=$(cloudflared tunnel list --output json | python3 -c \
  "import json,sys; t=[x for x in json.load(sys.stdin) if x['name']=='openclaw-koda']; print(t[0]['id'])")

Step 4: Write tunnel config

mkdir -p /etc/cloudflared
cat > /etc/cloudflared/openclaw-koda.yml << EOF
tunnel: ${TUNNEL_UUID}
credentials-file: /root/.cloudflared/${TUNNEL_UUID}.json

ingress:
  - hostname: koda.yourdomain.com
    service: http://localhost:18789
  - service: http_status:404
EOF

Step 5: Route DNS

cloudflared tunnel route dns openclaw-koda koda.yourdomain.com
# Automatically creates CNAME: koda.yourdomain.com → <UUID>.cfargotunnel.com

The domain must use Cloudflare nameservers. If it doesn't yet, the user transfers DNS management to Cloudflare (free, takes ~5 min).

Step 6: Install as systemd service

cat > /etc/systemd/system/cloudflared-koda.service << 'EOF'
[Unit]
Description=Cloudflare Tunnel — openclaw-koda
After=network.target openclaw.service

[Service]
Type=simple
User=root
ExecStart=/usr/bin/cloudflared tunnel --no-autoupdate --config /etc/cloudflared/openclaw-koda.yml run
Restart=always
RestartSec=5

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable cloudflared-koda
systemctl start cloudflared-koda
systemctl is-active cloudflared-koda

Step 7: Update OpenClaw allowedOrigins

"gateway": {
  "controlUi": {
    "allowedOrigins": [
      "http://localhost:18789",
        "https://koda.yourdomain.com"
    ]
  }
}

Then: systemctl restart openclaw-koda

Step 8: Lock down the port

Block direct public access — all traffic must go through the tunnel:

ufw deny 18789
ufw reload

---

Quick Tunnel (Fallback Only — Temporary)

⚠️ Use only as a temporary fallback when no domain is available. The URL is random and resets every time the service restarts. Switch to a named tunnel as soon as a domain is ready.

# Start quick tunnel — prints a random https://*.trycloudflare.com URL
cloudflared tunnel --url http://localhost:18789 --no-autoupdate

# Or as a systemd service (URL logged to /var/log/cloudflared-openclaw.log)
ExecStart=/usr/bin/cloudflared tunnel --no-autoupdate --url http://localhost:18789

Read the assigned URL:

grep -o 'https://[a-z0-9-]*\.trycloudflare\.com' /var/log/cloudflared-openclaw.log | tail -1

---

Multi-Agent Setup (One VPS, Multiple Agents)

Each agent = one OpenClaw gateway port + one named tunnel + one systemd service.

Port 18789 → openclaw-koda.service   + cloudflared-koda.service   → koda.yourdomain.com
Port 18790 → openclaw-alex.service   + cloudflared-alex.service   → alex.yourdomain.com
Port 18791 → openclaw-jordan.service + cloudflared-jordan.service → jordan.yourdomain.com

Critical: Do NOT use cloudflared service install for multiple agents — it only supports one tunnel and overwrites the system service. Always write individual systemd service files per agent.

---

Custom Domains

Key facts:

• Domain must use Cloudflare nameservers (transfer at your registrar — free)
• Cloudflare issues and auto-renews TLS certs
• CNAME records created automatically via cloudflared tunnel route dns
• Free Cloudflare plan: unlimited tunnels, unlimited bandwidth

See references/custom-domains.md for a full walkthrough.

---

Managing Tunnels

# Status
systemctl list-units "cloudflared-*" --no-pager

# Logs
journalctl -u cloudflared-koda -f

# List named tunnels
cloudflared tunnel list

# Delete a tunnel
cloudflared tunnel delete openclaw-koda
systemctl disable cloudflared-koda && rm /etc/systemd/system/cloudflared-koda.service