OpenFlare

Next-Gen Distributed Reverse Proxy & Edge Security Gateway for OpenResty / Nginx

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📖 What is OpenFlare?

OpenFlare is a modern, open-source distributed reverse proxy and edge security gateway platform designed for multi-server infrastructures and edge clusters.

Rather than a simple single-host admin panel, OpenFlare empowers traditional OpenResty / Nginx nodes with centralized cluster orchestration, dynamic zero-reload sync, line-rate edge WAF defense, and secure in-network tunneling:

• ⚡ Zero-Reload Dynamic Orchestration: Centralized control plane manages any number of edge nodes. Synchronize rule diffs in milliseconds with zero Nginx reload disruptions.
• 🛡️ Built-in Edge Security & Anti-CC (Turnstile Alternative): Comprehensive WAF rule engine, MaxMind GeoIP regional ACLs, and client-side cryptographic Proof of Work (PoW) challenges to eliminate botnets and CC attacks at line rate.
• 🚇 Zero-Trust Tunnels (Cloudflare Tunnel Alternative): Securely publish private homelab and internal web services to edge proxies via lightweight openflared clients without public IPs or open inbound ports.
• 📦 Pages Edge Hosting: Host static sites and SPAs pulled directly from GitHub Releases or uploaded bundles, distributed across edge nodes with instant rollbacks and fallback routing.
• 🔒 Automated Certificates & SSO: Automatic multi-domain Let's Encrypt certificates via ACME and enterprise single sign-on with GitHub OAuth and standard OIDC.

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🌐 Flexible Deployment: Standalone or Behind Cloudflare

OpenFlare is designed to operate seamlessly either as an independent edge gateway or in harmony with Cloudflare and public CDNs:

1. Standalone Edge Gateway (Private CDN)

Ideal for developers managing multi-region VPS clusters or homelabs:

• Deploy your own high-availability CDN and edge proxy cluster with 100% data and privacy ownership.
• Protect origin sites with built-in Turnstile-like PoW human challenges, dynamic WAF, and automated SSL certs without expensive enterprise CDN security plans.

2. Behind Cloudflare (Hardened Origin Shield)

Functions as an intelligent origin shield and routing gateway behind Cloudflare:

• Leaked Real IP Protection: If attackers bypass Cloudflare and directly hit your origin's public IP address, OpenFlare's edge WAF and PoW challenges will immediately intercept and block the attack.
• Full Private Log & Metric Retention: Overcomes Cloudflare Free tier limitations by retaining comprehensive, searchable request logs and operational metrics locally.
• Unified In-Network Routing: Ingest incoming Cloudflare traffic and dynamically route it across internal backends or private homelab services through secure tunnels.

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📊 Comparison: Traditional Nginx vs NPM vs OpenFlare

Feature	Traditional Nginx (nginx.conf)	Nginx Proxy Manager (NPM)	OpenFlare
Cluster Architecture	Manual per-host editing via SSH	Single node only; no cluster sync	Native Distributed Control Plane + Edge Agents
Configuration Sync	Requires nginx -s reload (connection churn)	Reloads on every change	Shared memory dynamic sync (Zero-Reload)
Anti-CC / Bot Protection	Basic limit_req rate limiting only	Not supported	Built-in Turnstile-like PoW Client Challenge
In-Network Tunnels	Requires separate third-party tools (frp)	Not supported	Built-in OpenFlared Tunnels (Zero inbound ports)
WAF & Threat Defense	Requires manual ModSecurity compilation	Basic exploit rules only	Dynamic WAF, GeoIP, IP list checksum sync
Static Pages Hosting	Manual directory copying and setup	Static file proxying only	Automated GitHub Release deployment & rollbacks
Works with Cloudflare	Manual set_real_ip_from list maintenance	Complex proxy header tuning	Native real IP restoration, ideal origin shield

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🏗️ Architecture

flowchart TD
    subgraph Visitors ["Public Visitors & Clients"]
        User["Public Users / Browsers"]
        CF["Cloudflare CDN (Optional Edge Layer)"]
    end

    subgraph EdgePlane ["Edge Data Plane (OpenResty Agent Nodes)"]
        Edge1["Edge Node A (OpenResty)"]
        Edge2["Edge Node B (OpenResty)"]
    end

    subgraph ControlPlane ["Control Plane"]
        Server["OpenFlare Server (Web Dashboard)"]
        DB[("PostgreSQL + Redis")]
    end

    subgraph Backend ["Upstream & Internal Services"]
        Origin["Public Origin Web Server"]
        subgraph PrivateNet ["Private Network / Homelab"]
            NAS["Internal Apps / NAS"]
            Client["OpenFlared Tunnel Client"]
        end
    end

    User -->|Direct HTTPS Request| Edge1
    User -->|Proxied via Cloudflare| CF
    CF -->|Secure Upstream Traffic| Edge2

    Server <-->|Dynamic Sync / Metrics| Edge1
    Server <-->|Dynamic Sync / Metrics| Edge2
    Server --- DB

    Edge1 -->|Reverse Proxy| Origin
    Edge2 -->|Reverse Proxy| Origin

    Client <-->|Encrypted Tunnel| Edge1
    NAS --- Client

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🖥️ UI Preview

Dashboard Overview

Edge WAF & Access Rules

Domain & Traffic Analytics

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⚡ Quick Start

1. Launch OpenFlare Server

Deploy the control plane using docker-compose:

# Download environment template
curl -o .env.example https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Rain-kl/OpenFlare/refs/heads/main/.env.example
cp .env.example .env

services:
  openflare:
    image: ghcr.io/rain-kl/openflare:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    env_file: .env
    environment:
      TZ: ${TZ:-Asia/Shanghai}
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    volumes:
      - openflare_uploads:/app/uploads
    depends_on:
      postgres:
        condition: service_healthy
      redis:
        condition: service_healthy

  postgres:
    image: postgres:17-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: ${DB_NAME:-openflare}
      POSTGRES_USER: ${DB_USERNAME:-openflare}
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD:-replace-with-strong-password}
    volumes:
      - openflare_postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U ${DB_USERNAME:-openflare} -d ${DB_NAME:-openflare}"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5

  redis:
    image: valkey/valkey:8.0-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    command: ["valkey-server", "--appendonly", "yes"]
    volumes:
      - openflare_redis_data:/data
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "valkey-cli", "ping"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5
      start_period: 5s

volumes:
  openflare_uploads:
  openflare_postgres_data:
  openflare_redis_data:

• Dashboard URL: http://localhost:3000
• Default Credentials: admin / 12345678

Warning

Change the default password 12345678 immediately upon first login.
The BETA version is in active development and testing; avoid using it in mission-critical production environments without regular backups.

2. Connect Edge Agent Node

Run the Agent container on any edge server (ensure ports 80/443 are open):

docker pull ghcr.io/rain-kl/openflare-agent:latest
docker run -d --name openflare-agent --restart unless-stopped \
  -p 80:80 -p 443:443/tcp -p 443:443/udp \
  -v openflare-agent-pages:/data/var/lib/openflare/pages \
  -e OPENFLARE_SERVER_URL=http://<YOUR_SERVER_IP>:3000 \
  -e OPENFLARE_AGENT_TOKEN=<YOUR_AGENT_TOKEN> \
  ghcr.io/rain-kl/openflare-agent:latest

(Copy the node token directly from Node Management in the dashboard)

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📚 Documentation

Official Documentation: https://openflare.fyrn.link

• Quick Start
• Deployment Guide
• Configuration Reference
• System Design

🔍 Minimum & Recommended Hardware Specifications

Component	Minimum Requirements	Recommended Requirements	Note
Server Control Plane	1 CPU / 2 GB RAM / 20 GB Disk	2 CPU / 4 GB RAM / 50 GB+ Disk	Scale disk based on access log retention
Agent Data Plane	1 CPU / 512 MB RAM / 2 GB Disk	2 CPU / 2 GB RAM / 10 GB+ Disk	Scale based on concurrent connections & WAF load
Relay Node	1 CPU / 1 GB RAM / 5 GB Disk	2 CPU / 2 GB RAM / 20 GB Disk	Mainly bound by bandwidth and CPU network throughput
OpenFlared Client	1 CPU / 256 MB RAM / 1 GB Disk	1 CPU / 512 MB RAM / 5 GB Disk	Extremely lightweight client

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⚖️ Trademark Disclaimer

OpenFlare is an independent, community-driven open-source project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Cloudflare, Inc. Cloudflare and related trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.

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