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Connect through Cloudflare Access to SMB file shares

The Server Message Block (SMB) protocol allows users to access, read, and write to shared files. Cloudflare Zero Trust provides a mechanism for end users to authenticate with their single sign-on (SSO) provider and connect to shared files over SMB without being on a virtual private network (VPN).

You can set up this connection by downloading and installing the Cloudflare daemon, cloudflared, on the machine hosting the file share and on the client machine. cloudflared will maintain a secure, persistent, outbound-only connection from the machine to Cloudflare. SMB traffic will then be proxied over this connection using Cloudflare Tunnel.

🗺️ This walkthrough covers how to:

  1. How to connect the machine hosting the file share to Cloudflare
  2. How to connect from a client machine

Before you start

  1. Create a Cloudflare account
  2. Add an active zone to Cloudflare
  3. Install the cloudflared daemon on the host and client machines

Connect the machine hosting the file share to Cloudflare

  1. Make sure cloudflared is installed on the machine hosting the file share.

  2. Run the following command to authenticate cloudflared into your Cloudflare account.

    \cloudflared.exe tunnel login

    cloudflared will open a browser window and prompt you to login to your Cloudflare account.

    If you are working on a machine that does not have a browser, or a browser window does not launch, you can copy the URL from the command-line output and visit the URL in a browser on any machine.

  3. Once you login, Cloudflare will display the sites that you added to your account.

  4. Select the site where you will create a subdomain to represent the SMB file share.

  5. For example, if you plan to share the drive at smb.site.com select site.com from the list.

  6. Once selected, cloudflared will download a wildcard certificate for the site. This certificate will allow cloudflared to create a DNS record for a subdomain of the site.

Secure the subdomain with Cloudflare Access

Next, protect the subdomain you plan to register with a Cloudflare Access application policy. Follow these instructions to build a new policy to control who can connect to the drive.

For example, if you share the drive at smb.site.com, build a policy to only allow your team members to connect to that subdomain.

Connect the drive to Cloudflare

By default, SMB drives listen on ports 445 or 139. Confirm which port your drive uses. You can use nonstandard ports, as well. Run the following command to connect the drive to Cloudflare, replacing the smb.site.com and 445 values with your site and port.

\cloudflared.exe tunnel --hostname smb.site.com --url tcp://localhost:445

cloudflared will confirm that the connection has been established. The process needs to be configured to stay alive and autostart. If the process is killed, end users will not be able to connect.

Connect a local machine to access the file share

  1. Make sure cloudflared is installed on the client desktop that will connect to the drive. cloudflared will need to be installed on each user device that will connect.

  2. Run the following command to create a connection from the device to Cloudflare. Any available port can be specified.

    \cloudflared.exe access tcp --hostname smb.site.com --url localhost:8445

    This command can be wrapped as a desktop shortcut so that end users do not need to use the command line.

  3. Open your SMB client and configure the client to point to tcp:localhost:8445. Do not input the hostname.

  4. When the client launches, cloudflared will launch a browser window and prompt the user to authenticate with your SSO provider.

Windows-specific requirements

If you are using a Windows machine, and cannot specify the port for SMB, you might need to disable the local Server. The local Server on a client machine uses the same default port for CIFS/SMB, port 445, and by listening on that port by default the Server can block the Cloudflare Access connection.

The Windows Server service supports share actions over a network like file, print, and named-pipe. Disabling this service can cause those actions to fail to start.

On the Windows machine, locate the Server process, likely called Server and running as services.msc. Terminate this service in the Run dialog box and ensure it is disabled on boot. Next, follow the same steps for the TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper service.