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    I finally understand Cloudflare Zero Trust tunnels

    (david.coffee)
    311 points eustoria | 18 comments | 16 Nov 25 17:39 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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    plantinthebok ◴[16 Nov 25 19:52 UTC] No.45947870[source]▶
    What's the actual win here? Avoiding relay latency in the rare cases Tailscale can't punch through NAT? If that's it, a $3 VPS running Headscale seems simpler. The complexity feels like you're optimizing for the 5% case while adding permanent vendor lock in. What am I missing?
    replies(6): >>45947999 #>>45948012 #>>45948016 #>>45948087 #>>45948806 #>>45952600 #
    1. killingtime74 ◴[16 Nov 25 20:12 UTC] No.45948016[source]▶
    For many homelabbers, just being cheap and avoiding the $3 VPS, that's it
    replies(2): >>45948073 #>>45950265 #
    2. comrh ◴[16 Nov 25 20:20 UTC] No.45948073[source]▶
    I dont even pay anything, my tiny homelab is completely covered by the free tier
    replies(1): >>45948827 #
    3. kohbo ◴[16 Nov 25 22:02 UTC] No.45948827[source]▶
    What provider still has decent free tier?
    replies(1): >>45948862 #
    4. antonkochubey ◴[16 Nov 25 22:07 UTC] No.45948862{3}[source]▶
    Oracle. 4 vCPU, 24 GB RAM, 200 GB SSD. It’s arm64 but nowadays that doesn’t really matter.
    replies(2): >>45949062 #>>45949432 #
    5. gear54rus ◴[16 Nov 25 22:30 UTC] No.45949062{4}[source]▶
    Which region were you able to create this in? They seem to be out of capacity all the time in EU.
    replies(2): >>45952032 #>>45954711 #
    6. Incipient ◴[16 Nov 25 23:29 UTC] No.45949432{4}[source]▶
    That can't possibly be free?
    replies(2): >>45950239 #>>45950383 #
    7. renewiltord ◴[17 Nov 25 01:58 UTC] No.45950239{5}[source]▶
    That’s generous but Oracle is very generous.
    8. anon7000 ◴[17 Nov 25 02:06 UTC] No.45950265[source]▶
    Exactly, just today I set up a cloudflare tunnel to a docker compose service running on my home server. I didn’t want to expose the server directly to the internet, and I want to share this service on a certain domain with broader family.

    I have a server at home that works well. I don’t reaaaally want to pay an extra $30-$40/yr and have an extra thing to manage when the CF tunnel works fine for free. I like Tailscale more, but I want to share this with family who won’t install TS and also want to use a specific domain.

    9. jazzyjackson ◴[17 Nov 25 02:32 UTC] No.45950383{5}[source]▶
    https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/FreeTier/freetier...

    Only caveat I see is they reserve the right to delete underutilized/ idling instances

    replies(1): >>45951516 #
    10. siwatanejo ◴[17 Nov 25 07:23 UTC] No.45951516{6}[source]▶
    I guess they require a credit card before accessing that free tier?
    replies(1): >>45958161 #
    11. jnsaff2 ◴[17 Nov 25 09:13 UTC] No.45952032{5}[source]▶
    I have read that you need to write a script to constantly bombard their API in order to get one. I presume you'd be fighting other scripts.
    12. petronic ◴[17 Nov 25 15:55 UTC] No.45954711{5}[source]▶
    What worked for me was handing them a credit card and transitioning myself out of the free tier. (I'd use the free credits they offer prior to doing this - they give you something like $300 immediately on signup.)

    The always-free infra remains free, you just have the chance of incurring a bill if you make selections that aren't free or exceed block storage/egress (200GB/10TB) limits of the always-free tier. Leaving the free/trial tier gives you access to a much larger pool of instances. I never successfully deployed an A1 instance prior to becoming a "paying" customer - now I've done it hundreds of times without ever having an issue.

    I've been running a small k0s cluster and a standalone webserver for months while incurring about $2.50 - $3 in spending each month, primarily from being slow to remove instance snapshots sitting in block storage.

    Even things that are oddly expensive on AWS - like NAT - are free on Oracle. There are zero gotchas.

    replies(1): >>45956373 #
    13. Peacefulz ◴[17 Nov 25 18:26 UTC] No.45956373{6}[source]▶
    I hit the same roadblock as the above user and it never occurred to me to just cross the barrier with cash and then scale back to free. Thanks for this.
    replies(1): >>45959263 #
    14. ranguna ◴[17 Nov 25 20:54 UTC] No.45958161{7}[source]▶
    If they do: create a virtual one, create an account with it and delete the card right after.
    replies(2): >>45959235 #>>45977273 #
    15. ◴[17 Nov 25 22:40 UTC] No.45959235{8}[source]▶
    16. elantile ◴[17 Nov 25 22:43 UTC] No.45959263{7}[source]▶
    It doesn't actually charge you anything. You just have to put a card down to be considered a priority because now you potentially can spend money & therefore are more important then the other free-tier losers. /s It's still free tier & still free.

    The free tier is also based on capcity usage, and not instances. If you want 3 cores on 1 machine & 1 on another, they're cool with that. I personally run Pangolin on a 1 core & self-hosted github runners on a 3 core.

    17. ranguna ◴[19 Nov 25 08:53 UTC] No.45977273{8}[source]▶
    An honest advise being down-voted?

    Thanks

    replies(1): >>45988493 #
    18. siwatanejo ◴[20 Nov 25 03:17 UTC] No.45988493{9}[source]▶
    I upvoted you.