Multi-user install

You don't choose this up front. When someone maps to a Linux user other than your own, ./install.sh and cloudflare-tmux add explain that the app must run as root to start a shell as that user, ask once, and switch. This page describes what the switch does.

Use it when several people share a machine and each should get their own Linux user: their own files, permissions and tmux sessions. Each Linux user must already exist and have a login shell. Create one with sudo adduser alice.

To ask for it explicitly, for example in a script:

./install.sh --multi-user \
  --host term.example.com \
  --identities alice@example.com:alice,bob@example.com:bob

How it works#

  • The app runs as root, as the system service cloudflare-tmux.service, so it can start processes as other users.
  • For each request it checks the login, maps the email to a Linux user through IDENTITIES, and starts tmux as that user with setpriv. Each person gets their own tmux server and can't reach anyone else's sessions.
  • It refuses to map root, any account with UID 0, and any account whose shell is nologin or false.
  • The tunnel stays a user service of the account that ran the installer.

Root-owned code#

A root service must not run code that a normal user can edit. So scripts/install-system.sh:

  1. copies server.js, public/, node_modules/ and the node binary to /opt/cloudflare-tmux, owned by root and writable by nobody else;
  2. copies ~/.config/cloudflare-tmux/env to /etc/cloudflare-tmux/env, directory 700 and file 600, dropping AUTH_DISABLED;
  3. installs /etc/systemd/system/cloudflare-tmux.service and disables the single-user app service, so they don't both claim port 7681.

After you change the config or the code#

Editing the checkout or the config file doesn't change what's running. Run:

scripts/cloudflare.sh term.example.com                        # only if IDENTITIES changed; asks for an API token
sudo NODE_BIN="$(command -v node)" scripts/install-system.sh  # always; no token needed

NODE_BIN matters if you use nvm: sudo doesn't see your nvm node, so pass it explicitly.

Add or remove a person#

Create the Linux user first, then use the same command as in the single-user install. It detects the multi-user install and re-runs install-system.sh for you, which asks for sudo.

sudo adduser carol
cloudflare-tmux add carol@example.com carol
cloudflare-tmux remove carol@example.com

See Cloudflare login for the Cloudflare side: inviting them as a member and the API token.

Switching from the single-user install#

You don't have to decide up front. When you add someone with a Linux user other than your own, cloudflare-tmux add offers to switch. ./install.sh does the same when IDENTITIES names other users. Your sessions and config stay as they are. Only the app service moves from your user to root.

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