Tunnel

The yerd tunnel commands publish a local site to the public internet through Cloudflare Tunnel (cloudflared). The connection is outbound-only - no inbound ports, no sudo. The Sharing Sites guide covers the model and the two tiers (quick tunnels and named tunnels); this page is the command reference.

cloudflared is detected on PATH, or downloaded on demand

The first share needs the cloudflared binary. Yerd looks for one already on your PATH first and uses it if it's version 2023.3.0 or newer; otherwise yerd tunnel install fetches the official static build (checksum-verified) into the daemon's data directory - it is not bundled and never touches your system unless you already had a compatible cloudflared installed. Quick share needs no Cloudflare account; named tunnels need a one-time yerd tunnel login.

Commands

Command	Description
yerd tunnel install	Download the cloudflared binary (required before sharing).
yerd tunnel share <SITE>	Share a site via a Quick Tunnel (random *.trycloudflare.com URL).
yerd tunnel stop <SITE>	Stop sharing a site.
yerd tunnel status	Show live tunnels and cloudflared install status.
yerd tunnel login	Log in to a Cloudflare account (opens a browser) for named tunnels.
yerd tunnel create <NAME>	Create a named tunnel on the logged-in account.
yerd tunnel delete <NAME>	Delete a named tunnel and forget it locally.
yerd tunnel list	List the named tunnel, exposed sites, and authorized domain.
yerd tunnel route <TUNNEL> <HOSTNAME>	Create the proxied DNS record for a hostname.
yerd tunnel set-host <SITE> [HOSTNAME] [--clear]	Set or clear a site's public hostname.
yerd tunnel publish	Start the named tunnel, exposing every site with a hostname set.
yerd tunnel unpublish	Stop the named tunnel (takes every named site offline).

yerd tunnel install
yerd tunnel share app
yerd tunnel status
yerd tunnel stop app

Quick tunnels

yerd tunnel install

Downloads and installs cloudflared. Idempotent; safe to re-run. Needed once before any share, unless a compatible cloudflared is already on PATH (see above). Re-running it always switches Yerd back to the managed copy, even if a PATH binary was previously in use.

yerd tunnel share <SITE>

Publishes <SITE> (a site name like app, or its host app.test) at a random https://<name>.trycloudflare.com URL and prints it. The URL is temporary - it changes on the next share and is torn down on stop or daemon shutdown. Requires cloudflared to be installed.

yerd tunnel stop <SITE>

Tears down the site's tunnel. No-op if it isn't shared.

yerd tunnel status

Lists live tunnels (site, kind, state, URL/hostname) and whether cloudflared is installed and logged in, plus its version and source: managed (Yerd's own download) or system (found on your PATH) in --json output.

Named tunnels

Named tunnels serve a stable hostname on a domain you manage in Cloudflare. They use one consolidated tunnel for every exposed site.

yerd tunnel login

Opens a browser to authorize Yerd for a Cloudflare zone. The account certificate is stored in the daemon's data directory. Run once per machine.

yerd tunnel create <NAME>

Creates a named tunnel on the logged-in account and records it locally. Yerd supports one named tunnel at a time; delete the existing one before creating a differently-named tunnel.

yerd tunnel set-host <SITE> [HOSTNAME] [--clear]

Maps <SITE> to a public HOSTNAME on your authorized domain: it creates the proxied DNS record and records the mapping so the consolidated tunnel serves it. HOSTNAME is required unless --clear is given - --clear removes the site's mapping (and the two are mutually exclusive, so forgetting the hostname can't silently clear it).

yerd tunnel set-host app app.example.com
yerd tunnel set-host app --clear

yerd tunnel publish / yerd tunnel unpublish

publish (re)starts the consolidated named tunnel, serving every site that has a hostname set. unpublish stops it, taking all named sites offline. Both require login and a created tunnel.

yerd tunnel route <TUNNEL> <HOSTNAME>

Creates the proxied CNAME routing HOSTNAME to TUNNEL on your Cloudflare zone. set-host does this for you; route is the lower-level primitive.

yerd tunnel list

Shows the recorded named tunnel, the per-site hostname mappings that are exposed, and the authorized domain resolved from your account.

yerd tunnel delete <NAME>

Deletes the named tunnel from your Cloudflare account and forgets it locally: stops the process, removes the credentials, and clears the exposed-site mappings. Only the one configured tunnel may be deleted. The DNS records created by set-host/route remain on your account - remove them in the Cloudflare dashboard if you no longer want them.

Desktop app

The desktop app's Share page (under Integrations) drives all of this with a searchable site picker, a per-site expose toggle, and automatic start/stop. See the Sharing Sites guide.