Connect through Cloudflare Access using a CLI

Cloudflare’s cloudflared command-line tool allows you to interact with endpoints protected by Cloudflare Access. You can use cloudflared to interact with a protected application’s API.

These instructions are not meant for configuring a service to run against an API. The token in this example is tailored to user identity and intended only for an end user interacting with an API via a command-line tool.

This walkthrough covers how to:

• Connect to resources secured by Cloudflare Access from a CLI

Time to complete:

30 minutes

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Authenticate a session from the command line

Once you have installed cloudflared, you can use it to retrieve a Cloudflare Access application token. This walkthrough uses the domain example.com as a stand-in for a protected API.

1. To generate a token, run the following command:

   cloudflared access login https://example.com

   With this command, cloudflared launches a browser window containing the same Access login page found when attempting to access a web application.

2. Select your identity provider and log in.

If the browser window does not launch, you can use the unique URL that is automatically printed to the command line.

1. Once you have successfully authenticated, the browser returns the token to cloudflared in a cryptographic transfer and stores it.

The token is valid for the session duration configured by the Access administrator.

Access your API

Once you have retrieved a token, you can access the protected API. The cloudflared command-line tool includes a wrapper for transferring data via curl, which uses URL syntax (for more, see the curl ↗ GitHub project). The wrapper injects the token into the curl request as a query argument named token. You can invoke the wrapper as follows:

cloudflared access curl http://example.com

It is possible also to use the put command with cloudflared for any Unix tool to include the token in the request.

Read on for other available commands.

Available commands

login

The login command initiates the login flow for an application behind Access.

cloudflared access login http://example.com

curl

The curl command invokes the client wrapper and includes the token in the request automatically.

cloudflared access curl http://example.com

token

The token command retrieves the token scoped to that specific application for use in other command-line tools.

cloudflared access token -app=http://example.com

Using the token as an environment variable

It is possible to save the token as an environment variable for convenience and concision in scripts that access a protected application.

Set up a token as an environment variable as follows:

1. Run the following command to export the token to the shell environment:

   export TOKEN=$(cloudflared access token -app=http://example.com)

2. Confirm the token was saved with the following:

   echo $TOKEN

Once you have exported the token to your environment, use the variable with the Cloudflare Access request header in the script to access a protected endpoint, as in the following example:

curl -H "cf-access-token: $TOKEN" https://example.com/rest/api/2/item/foo-123