New to Enhance - best starter setup with growth in mind?: Page 2 - Enhance Control Panel

New to Enhance - best starter setup with growth in mind?

JohnBee

To update, the database connectivity issue was due to using '127.0.0.1' and/or the 'IP' itself, rather than 'localhost' with the script.

Without affirmation, it would appear that this is due to the nature of dockerization in Enhance, though I'm just guessing at this stage.

NB; localhost, seems to be the default(or only), database connectivity in Enhance Panel in-terms of db connectivity

twest

JohnBee ahah, that's what I was gonna suggest you try.

twest

psybox yeah CF doesn't allow glue records. That's easily overcome though, you'd just registrar your domain somewhere else like Namecheap, then you have glue records at Namecheap for your ns1/ns2, and put your DNS on Cloudflare to take advantage of all the CF features.

psybox

twest ah yes, that’s the bit I didn’t test as I was getting annoyed at the staging dns also not working! So with the name servers registered else where, you add it as a free account in CF and manually add the ns1/ns2 and IPs, then change the nameservers to CF ones I presume?

aad

twest Could you pretty please clarify all this.

I’m curious about your experience with the following:

1) Setting up custom nameservers.
2)Ensuring that all your websites on the “enhance” platform are syncing with Cloudflare.

If you’ve achieved this - I’d love to learn more about how it works.

Typically, Cloudflare requires a $200 business plan for custom nameservers. However, if you’ve managed to set them up using domains registered with Namecheap, I’m wondering which IP addresses your ns1 and ns2 are pointing to.

One concern I have is that if these custom nameservers point directly to your “enhance” main control center, your clients might bypass Cloudflare entirely if their domains are pointed to your nameservers. In that scenario, local DNS would sync directly with Cloudflare, and Cloudflare’s DNS wouldn’t be utilized.

Please correct me if I’m mistaken. I’m also interested in having my own custom nameservers without the hefty price tag for Cloudflare’s custom nameservers.

Thanks,
aad

twest

psybox the glue records are a separate function in a domains settings than the DNS. Each registrar would have the glue records in a different section, some call it other names too. To have custom DNS servers in your enhance cluster, you'd need to have the glue records, AND also need to add a "A" records into the DNS that matches the glue records, AND there needs to be at least one domain using those custom DNS servers... A lot of people get confused about the custom DNS setup where they have to have both glue records and also DNS records, and they're two very different things. It's no problem to have your main domain registered at a place like Namecheap where you can set the glue records, while your main domain DNS is hosted at Cloudflare.

The staging site system doesn't work with Cloudflare, not automatically, you have to do some parts of the setup manually (the DNS). Ultimately I decided to trash the enhance staging system in my setup because even with it functioning I didn't like how it copies the whole website/account/container, as a lot of my customers have many addon domains, so they'd have to deal with all their domains going into staging if they wanted to use staging for any of them... Easier to just setup staging manually on a case by case basis.

psybox

aad once you have created the custom ns1 with the registrar, the glue is set. You can then set the namservers to CF. In CF you can then create A records for the ns1 you set at the registrar. Cloudflare will then respond to the custom ns without paying the £200 month. That is my understanding but I haven’t tested it, as I moved dns to enhance instead due to bashing my head on a wall.

twest

aad First I'd like to answer your second question. I can't ensure every site is using Cloudflare, but that's how I've set it up, and I'm not running custom NS anymore, so customers have to have their own DNS like Cloudflare or Bunny, etc... Typically during onboarding a customer we'll setup Cloudflare for them as part of the migration process, if they don't already have Cloudflare. We sell a premium product, which has budget for that extra hands-on work. For mass shared hosting, it wouldn't be possible to enforce Cloudflare, and the pricing wouldn't afford the hands-on support to be able to do that.

For the 1st point, the issue people run into thinking about using Cloudflare on their hosting domain + having custom NS on the same domain is that they think setup of NS requires having glue records "in the dns", which is wrong, glue records aren't in the DNS, it's a different thing controlled by your domain registrar.

In Namecheap for example, you'd go to the Advanced section in your domain settings, then at the bottom they have this section, this is where you set your glue records:

In that section you'd add your "glue records" like ns1/ns2, each pointing at your NS IP's.

Then over in your Cloudflare DNS you'd set two A records that match those glue records:
A ns1 111.111.111
A ns2 111.111.112

Boom, now your NS is ready to go as far as the domain/dns settings go - the other part is configuring them in your Enhance cluster, then making sure you have at least 1 domain in your cluster using those NS. It will just start working.

Something else I see tripping people up, for some reason they confuse their domain's NS with the custom NS. Your domain doesn't need to have its NS set to use your custom NS/glue records. So in Namecheap (or any other registrar), you'd have your domain's NS set to point at Cloudflare, so you can use Cloudflare services and have your main domain's DNS there. Setting your Nameservers in Namecheap is in the "Domain" section of the domain settings, here:

So you set your domain's NS to point at Cloudflare, you set your glue records to point at your NS servers, you add A records in your DNS at Cloudflare that point at your NS servers.

Absolutely no need to upgrade Cloudflare just to add glue records capability. If your domain is registered at Cloudflare, then you're screwed because they don't have glue records unless you pay, so you need to transfer your domain to a proper registrar that has all records available.

rdbf

For several clients I use the free cloudflare tier. In your registrar (namecheap), put the free tier cloudflare nameservers as nameserver for the chosen domain. In your cloudflare, make an API key. In Enhance, use the cloudflare integration with that API key.

Works like a charm, and everything that Enhance needs to update in the DNS zone, will be updated automatically in cloudflare through the API.

https://enhance.com/docs/dns-role/dns-cloudflare.html

jb007

twest I never thought of running 3 different servers, which is actually really smart.

However, and not to hijack this thread, wouldn't the user be required to install php, apache, etc on the server where the app & db are located? or does Enhance being on 1 server also "manage" the others? also in regard to security, malware scanning, etc.

twest

jb007 It's kind of required to run additional servers if you continually add more sites to your system, you'll outgrow the resources of just one server. That's one of the really nice things about the Enhance system, you can have unlimited servers so there's no issue with growth, and the pricing scheme makes adding more servers free (just pay for accounts/websites).

When you add a new server to your cluster Enhance gives you a script to paste into the new server terminal and Enhance installs itself there, then within your control panel you would activate whatever roles you want to run on that server like app/db. A lot of your generic settings set in your control panel will propagate down to your additional servers, some things you have to copy/paste into the new servers, like if you have Mod Security setup you'd need to copy/paste your custom config into the ModSec settings on each new server (if you have custom config in there, which you almost certainly should so you can optimize Apache config and add compatibility exclusions, etc).

The really nice part about Enhance is that while you can have hundreds of different servers that host customer's websites, they all login to manage their accounts on the one control panel server where your control panel role is installed, and you can also manage all your customer accounts as needed from the control panel - makes it a bit easy for doing tech support and changing settings on customer's accounts since you don't have to know what specific server they're hosted on and you don't have to login to different server control panels - like you'd have to do in a traditional panel like cPanel/Plesk/DA. Enhance is centralized in the main control panel, which then controls all the servers in the cluster.

Eventually we'll have even more controls for the other servers in your cluster, like you'll be able to manage package updates for servers, that will be real handy.

xyzulu

psybox Cloudflare will then respond to the custom ns without paying the £200 month

This is not correct. If you don't want to pay Cloudflare you cannot use custom ns records with them.

psybox

xyzulu you can as long as it had glue at another registrar I beleive. You cannot if the domain never had glue records, to do this in CF will cost £200 month. I beleive …. And it’s using A records not using the custome dns / registering in CF

jb007

twest do you provide consultations? Cause it appears you're the one with experience and answers!

xyzulu

psybox you can as long as it had glue at another registrar I beleive

Not correct. If you want Cloudflare to act as a nameserver on a custom name server ie ns1.yourdomain.com you will need a paid plan.

twest

xyzulu no, you're wrong, see my instructions above. It's actually very simple to use Cloudflare on the same domain used for custom nameservers, you just have to have your domain registered at a registrar that supports glue records, like Namecheap.

xyzulu

I am happy to be wrong.. I understand glue records etc.. it's just the custom nameserver at Cloudflare part I thought was clear.. so..

Setup glue records, as well as A records. Point the A records where? If I point it to my enhance cluster then Cloudflare won't be used for DNS/proxy etc either.

Add domain to Cloudflare (and Cloudflare provides blah.ns.cloudflare.com at that point). Point domain you just added to ns1.mydomain.com and ns2.mydomain.com (ns3, 4 etc)?

Are you saying at this point Cloudflare detects the domain as being added and will even proxy traffic?

twest

xyzulu there's no "custom nameservers at Cloudflare" in the setup. The only thing you'd have at Cloudflare is the two A records that point at your custom nameservers ns1.blah.com, etc.

Custom nameservers need both the glue records (which aren't part of the DNS) and also the matching A records (which are part of the DNS).

There's no traffic to proxy for the nameservers, and in fact I don't think you can use the proxy for the A records or else the nameservers won't come up as valid nameservers as the A records need to publicly match the glue records. So you'd need to have the proxy toggle turned off on those A records.

You can use the Cloudflare proxy on all the other records for the domain though, which is what I do because my main domain serves many purposes (subdomain for billing app, subdomain for enhance control panel, subdomain for various other apps for marketing/email/etc), and I use the proxy and Cloudflare services on all those.

xyzulu

Yeah, I understand all this.

I think a lot of being lost/confused in this thread.. I'm not talking about using Cloudflare on the same domain as I might want name servers setup on.. I'm talking about (and I think others are) using custom nameservers ie ns1.mydomain.com (for a customerdomain.com on Enhance) and routing traffic through Cloudflare. This is not possible without a paid Cloudflare account.

twest

xyzulu there's no such thing as routing traffic via nameservers, that concept doesn't make any sense, as cool as it would be.

The closest thing to people's traffic inheriting Cloudflare proxy/features would be to have an Enterprise CF account. With that, users would have DNS records that point at your CFE account which would then be setup with records that point at their hosting at enhance, then their web traffic would inherit your CFE proxy+features.

There's not web traffic "flowing through nameservers" where that web traffic could be affected by Cloudflare... That's not how DNS works. The only traffic hitting your custom nameservers is when other DNS servers are pinging for updates, not traffic from joe schmoe on his phone trying to view a website.

xyzulu

twest There's not web traffic "flowing through nameservers" where that web traffic could be affected by Cloudflare... That's not how DNS works.

I'm actually fully aware of this. DNS is one of my areas of expertise.

Many people want to use Cloudflare as a proxy .. but also brand themselves (the traditional cPanel/Plesk/DA way) with ns1.domain.com and ns2.domain.com etc. This is not possible without a paid (Business and above I think) Cloudflare account.

However, if you are happy to use the allocated Cloudflare nameservers for your hosted domains this is possible with Enhance and a free Cloudflare account.

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