What is NAT Traversal?
NAT traversal exposes your local network services (NAS, Raspberry Pi, etc.) to the internet, even without a public IP.
Tools Comparison
| Tool | Key Feature | Price |
|---|---|---|
| frp | Open source, self-hosted | Free |
| Cloudflare Tunnel | No server needed, CDN | Free |
| ngrok | Quick temporary tunnels | Free/Paid |
| Tailscale | Peer-to-peer mesh | Free/Paid |
Cloudflare Tunnel (Recommended)
cloudflared tunnel login
cloudflared tunnel create my-tunnel
cloudflared tunnel route dns my-tunnel home.example.com
cloudflared tunnel --url http://localhost:8080 run my-tunnelfrp (Self-hosted)
Server: run frps with auth token. Client: run frpc with proxy rules mapping local ports to the server.
Security
- Use strong passwords and auth tokens
- Restrict source IPs
- Enable HTTPS
- Never expose admin panels directly