Creating a CloudFlare Account, Adding a Domain, and Updating Nameservers

General Information
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CloudFlare

CloudFlare is a popular content delivery network (CDN) and DNS provider that offers various features to improve website performance, security, and reliability. CloudFlare offers a lot of these features at no cost for all of your domains and also has premium subscriptions available.

In this guide, we will walk you through the process of creating a new CloudFlare account, adding a domain to CloudFlare, and updating the domain’s nameservers to point to CloudFlare. We will also cover the specific steps for creating and managing DNS records within CloudFlare.

Creating a CloudFlare Account

  1. Visit the CloudFlare website at www.cloudflare.com.
  2. Click on the “Sign Up” button at the top right corner of the page.
  3. Enter your email address and create a strong password for your CloudFlare account.
  4. Click on the “Create Account” button to proceed.

Adding a Domain to CloudFlare

  1. After creating your CloudFlare account, you will be prompted to add your domain.
  2. Enter your domain name (e.g., xbhcloudflare.com) into the provided text field.
  3. Click on the “Add Site” button.

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Updating Nameservers to Point to CloudFlare

  1. Once you’ve added your domain, CloudFlare will display a list of your current nameservers.
  2. They will also provide a list of new nameservers that you should specify for your domain. Make a note of the two nameservers provided by CloudFlare (e.g., alexa.ns.cloudflare.com and omar.ns.cloudflare.com).
  3. Login to your domain registrar’s website (the company where you purchased your domain).
  4. Locate the DNS management or nameserver settings for your domain within your registrar’s control panel.
  5. Replace the existing nameservers with the CloudFlare nameservers you noted in step 2.
  6. Save the changes to update the nameservers.

Note: DNS changes may take some time to propagate globally, which can range from a few minutes to up to 24 hours. During this period, your website may experience intermittent downtime or routing issues. You can track DNS propagation at WhatsMyDNS

Creating and Managing DNS Records

  1. Go back to your CloudFlare account and navigate to the “DNS” tab for your domain.
  2. Click on the “Add record” button to create a new DNS record.
  3. Select the type of record you want to create from the provided options (e.g., A, CNAME, MX, TXT, etc.).
  4. Enter the necessary details based on the selected record type (e.g., IP address for an A record, domain for a CNAME record).
  5. Set the desired TTL (Time-to-Live) value for the record (the default value is usually recommended).
  6. Click on the “Save” button to create the record.
  7. Repeat steps 2-6 for any additional DNS records you want to add.

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Note: When you setup a new domain in CloudFlare it will attempt to pull a list of your existing DNS records so that you can recreate them in CloudFlare. It can miss some records so its important you closely review all of your records and verify that you have everything you need.

Congratulations, you’re now using CloudFlare!

By following the steps outlined in this community guide, you should now have a new CloudFlare account, successfully added a domain to CloudFlare, and updated the domain’s nameservers to point to CloudFlare. You have also learned how to create and manage DNS records within CloudFlare. Remember to periodically review and update your DNS records as needed to ensure optimal website functionality and security.

If you require any assistance from our support team during the setup of your CloudFlare solution please do not hesitate to reach out.