Update cloudflared

Updates will cause cloudflared to restart which will impact traffic currently being served. You can perform zero-downtime upgrades by using Cloudflare's Load Balancer product or by using multiple cloudflared instances.

Update the cloudflared service

Refer to the following commands to update cloudflared for a remotely-managed tunnel created through the dashboard or a locally-managed tunnel. Locally-managed tunnels must be set up to run as a service for the following commands to execute successfully.

Windows

Run the following command:

PowerShell

cloudflared update

After running cloudflared update to update cloudflared, you must restart the service for it to take effect. Run:

PowerShell

net start cloudflared

macOS

1. Update the cloudflared package:

brew upgrade cloudflared

2. Restart the service:

sudo launchctl stop com.cloudflare.cloudflared
sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.cloudflare.cloudflared.plist
sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.cloudflare.cloudflared.plist
sudo launchctl start com.cloudflare.cloudflared

Debian

If installed via apt:

1. Update the cloudflared package:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade cloudflared

2. Restart the service:

sudo systemctl restart cloudflared.service

If installed via dpkg -i:

Use the following commands if you installed cloudflared using the dpkg package manager.

You can check if cloudflared was installed by a package manager by running ls -la /usr/local/etc/cloudflared/ and looking for .installedFromPackageManager in the output.

1. Update the cloudflared package:

curl --location --output cloudflared.deb https://github.com/cloudflare/cloudflared/releases/latest/download/cloudflared-linux-amd64.deb && sudo dpkg -i cloudflared.deb

2. Restart the service:

sudo systemctl restart cloudflared.service

Red Hat

1. Update the cloudflared package:

sudo yum update cloudflared

2. Restart the service:

sudo systemctl restart cloudflared.service

Docker

If you created a remotely-managed tunnel using the dashboard:

1. In Zero Trust ↗, go to Networks > Tunnels.
2. Select your tunnel and select Configure.
3. Select Docker and copy the installation command shown in the dashboard. The copied command will contain your token.
4. Paste this command into a terminal window.

This command creates a new container from the latest cloudflared image. You can now delete the old container.

Warning

Cloudflare recommends creating remotely-managed tunnels when working with Docker.

If you created a remotely or locally-managed tunnel using the API, run the following command:

docker run --pull always cloudflare/cloudflared:latest tunnel --no-autoupdate run --token <TOKEN>

If you created a locally-managed tunnel using the CLI:

1. Mount your local .cloudflared directory into the Docker container using a volume.

2. Run the following command to update cloudflared:

   docker run --pull always -v <PATH-TO-YOUR-LOCAL-CLOUDFLARED>:/home/nonroot/.cloudflared cloudflare/cloudflared:latest tunnel --no-autoupdate run <TUNNEL-ID>

Other

If you installed cloudflared from GitHub-provided binaries or from source, run the following command:

cloudflared update

If you installed cloudflared with a package manager, you must update it using the same package manager.

You can check if cloudflared was installed by a package manager by running ls -la /usr/local/etc/cloudflared/ and looking for .installedFromPackageManager in the output.

Update with Cloudflare Load Balancer

You can update cloudflared without downtime by using Cloudflare's Load Balancer product with your Cloudflare Tunnel deployment.

1. Install a new instance of cloudflared and create a new Tunnel.
2. Configure the instance to point traffic to the same locally-available service as your current, active instance of cloudflared.
3. Add the address of the new instance of cloudflared into your Load Balancer pool as priority 2.
4. Swap the priority such that the new instance is now priority 1 and monitor to confirm traffic is being served.
5. Once confirmed, you can remove the older version from the Load Balancer pool.

Update with multiple cloudflared instances

If you are not using Cloudflare's Load Balancer, you can use multiple instances of cloudflared to update without the risk of downtime.

1. Install a new instance of cloudflared and create a new Tunnel.
2. Configure the instance to point traffic to the same locally-available service as your current, active instance of cloudflared.
3. In the Cloudflare DNS dashboard, replace the address of the current instance of cloudflared with the address of the new instance. Save the record.
4. Remove the now-inactive instance of cloudflared.

Traffic handling

When the old replica is stopped, it will drop long-lived HTTP requests (for example, WebSocket) and TCP connections (for example, SSH). UDP flows will also be dropped, as they are modeled based on timeouts. When the new replica connects, it will handle all new traffic, including new HTTP requests, TCP connections, and UDP flows.

Run multiple instances in Windows

Windows systems require services to have a unique name and display name. You can run multiple instances of cloudflared by creating cloudflared services with unique names.

1. Install and configure cloudflared.
2. Next, create a service with a unique name and point to the cloudflared executable and configuration file.

PowerShell

sc.exe create <unique-name> binPath='<path-to-exe>' --config '<path-to-config>' displayname="Unique Name"

3. Proceed to create additional services with unique names.

4. You can now start each unique service.

PowerShell

sc.exe start <unique-name>