A Requirement#
If you are a designer who likes to tinker, how can you share your well-taken photos, designed posters, videos, and other materials with your colleagues in the company? Assuming there are hundreds or even thousands of materials, it would be annoying if everyone asks you for them every time they need an image, right?
Therefore, using eagle to manage and organize design project cases, product images, posters, videos, and other materials is an excellent way. However, it is not feasible to install eagle on every computer and purchase accounts for everyone.
As a result, another option is to build a local eagle database into a material sharing website called PicHome-Eagle Image Sharing. Colleagues can easily access and download product images within the company's intranet.
If your requirement is only to share the material library within the intranet, you can directly access the pichome website and use phpStudy to quickly set it up.
So, what if you have an additional requirement to allow colleagues who are on business trips to access the material library? What should you do?
Deploying pichome on a cloud service? It is possible, but the material library is several hundred gigabytes in size and constantly increasing. Who can afford the cost?
Is there a way to turn the intranet into something that can be accessed from the internet? Yes, there is.
Intranet Penetration#
I always thought that "intranet penetration" was used for sharing transmission within the intranet or VPN tools. After some learning, I realized that it is exactly what I was looking for.
By using an idle local computer that is always on as a server, the material library built within the intranet can be accessed directly from the internet through an intranet penetration tool.
Initially, I successfully deployed this solution Quickly Build a Website Locally with phpStudy and Access It from the Internet. If I need a fixed subdomain for long-term use, the basic version for 99/year is sufficient. I plan to try other solutions, and if they don't work, I will come back to this one. It is my last resort.
Through a video on Bilibili Intranet Penetration Explanation, I learned that there are actually many intranet penetration tools available, such as Ngrok, Peanut Shell, NATAPP, FRP, and DingTalk Penetration. After comparing them, I found a solution that suits my personal needs.
Cloudflare Free Intranet Penetration Tutorial because xLog's blog uses Cloudflare for DNS resolution, I am familiar with it to some extent. It has a user-friendly Chinese interface, a reliable brand, allows custom domain names, and is free.
Deployment Practice#
Note: Set up full VPN mode for deployment, accessing Cloudflare is faster. If you encounter any issues, refer to the Cloudflare Zero Trust Official Documentation and read it multiple times.
- Usually, at this step, you must already have a domain name. You don't need to consider whether to apply for a subdomain in advance. Just follow the standard steps of Cloudflare to replace the NS resolution and ensure that the main domain can be accessed normally.
- Assuming Cloudflare has successfully taken over the resolution service of the zhuyumin.com domain name, select "Traffic" on the left navigation panel, then "Cloudflare Tunnel".
- Create a tunnel.
- Name your tunnel.
- Download and install the program on the local computer that needs to be accessed from the internet. Note that the installation process will flash quickly. Then, copy and paste the command below to the CMD for installation. If the installation fails, consider using "Windows PowerShell (Administrator) mode.
- Go back to the Tunnels interface. If the status is HEALTHY, it means the tunnel has been successfully created. Click the three dots at the end to enter the Configure settings for IP binding.
- Set the parameters for the Public Hostname Page. After entering the subdomain name in the Subdomain field, an automatic subdomain will be generated. The Domain field will automatically pick up the main domain. Leave the Path field blank. Select http for Type, and the URL should be the IP of the local computer without the need to specify the port.
- After saving, you can access the local computer's material library or your own built blog using this subdomain.
- After successful deployment, the access speed will gradually increase. It may be a bit slow at the beginning.
- Accessing from mobile devices is relatively faster. Cloudflare allows custom domain names and provides free penetration. What more could you ask for!
Afterword and Experience#
As a programming novice, I usually enjoy tinkering. Before this, I didn't even know what intranet penetration meant. I just followed a strange impulse. The worst-case scenario is that it doesn't work and I waste some time and energy. What does it matter?
Since I didn't understand the underlying logic, every step felt like solving a puzzle. Even after successfully deploying it, I still felt confused and didn't fully understand what I did.
Looking back, each step seemed to have divine assistance, and there were no major obstacles that caused me to give up. Thanks to repeatedly encountering errors and persisting in trying again, there were no special tricks.