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Alternatives to Cloudflare

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Simone Di Mambro edited this page Sep 8, 2026 · 1 revision

Alternatives to Cloudflare

Anything that gives the gateway a public HTTPS URL with a certificate a stock iPhone trusts works. iOS File Provider extensions refuse self-signed certificates, so plain https://<public-ip>:8484 with a home-made certificate does not work.

Reverse proxy on Unraid + port forward

Use Nginx Proxy Manager or SWAG from Community Applications:

  1. Point a DNS name (DuckDNS, your domain, a dynamic-DNS provider) at your public IP. You need a real public IPv4 (no CGNAT) or working IPv6.
  2. Forward TCP 443 on your router to the proxy container.
  3. In the proxy create a host unraidfile.example.com → http://192.168.0.100:8484, request a Let's Encrypt certificate, enable Force SSL and HTTP/2.
  4. Keep TRUST_PROXY=true on the gateway.

Pros: no third party in the path. Cons: an open port on your router, and it does not work behind CGNAT.

Tailscale / WireGuard

If you do run a VPN on your device, the gateway is just another LAN service: use http://<tailscale-ip>:8484 or the MagicDNS name. Plain HTTP is accepted by iOS for local/VPN addresses only when the app allows local networking, which Unraid Drive does. Note that only one VPN can be active on iOS at a time.

Other tunnels

Pangolin, ngrok, Tailscale Funnel, frp behind a VPS with Caddy… all fine as long as the result is a public https:// URL with a valid certificate that forwards to 192.168.0.100:8484. Set TRUST_PROXY=true.

What does not work

  • http://<public-ip>:8484 with port forwarding: iOS blocks plain HTTP to public addresses in extensions.
  • Self-signed or private-CA certificates.
  • Exposing the Unraid WebGUI itself: never do that; the gateway is the only thing that should be reachable.

Unraid Drive

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