Cloudflare DNS Questions

nqnoc

Hi,

I’m thinking on using Cloudflare with Enhance instead of my own DNS to host my clients websites DNS.

About this some questions. If someone can help me understand and clarify this for me would be great!
Thanks!

1- If I build a new Enhance cluster, I will not need to install any DNS servers or roles. Cloudflare DNS integration and dns records management will be available on the CP server. Is this correct?

2- Besides “not supporting/not work properly” with Enhance stagging domains. Any other major problem or issue, when using Cloudflare to manage clients DNS vs using Enhance DNS cluster?

3- I never use Cloudflare Proxy. Just the pure and plain DNS. Can I set this as a global setting on all DNS records or each time I edit or add a record on Enhance I need to choose Proxy/NoProxy?

4- If a client already has its domain pointed to Cloudflare, how do you handle the DNS migration to Enhance Cloudflare account? Do you just add it and point to the new Cloudflare nameserver (that can be the same or different)?

5- I’m using Cloudflare Free plan and from what I remember it always gives me the same Nameservers to use (adel / tim). But I read that this can change at any moment. So how do you ensure that new domains will always use the correct Cloudflare Nameservers?

6- From who is using Cloudflare DNS, any other advice or recommendation?

twest

nqnoc

Yes.
No.
No, but records default to no-proxy, so shouldn't be a problem - you'd just ignore it in this case.
There's no such thing as "enhance cloudflare account". You would either login to the customers Cloudflare account to generate a api token, or you would have the customer add you as an admin on their account so your CF account's api token could be used for their domain on CF.
This question doesn't really make sense (thinking you are not understanding how the Enhance CF integration works)... People set their Nameserver setting at their domain registrar, it doesn't have anything to do with Enhance.
Read the docs and other forum posts about it so you understand how the integration works. Each customer will need to have the integration added on their accounts, the api token needs to be configured on your/their CF account. Once the integration is in place and activated on a domain in Enhance, Enhance will overwrite whatever dns settings were at CF and replace it with whatever is in the domain's dns section in Enhance. Any future changes to customers dns needs to be made from within the dns manager in Enhance (because Enhance will delete/overwrite anything that's not in Enhance).

The main benefit I see for having the integration connected is for DR. In an event where a server was recommissioned then Enhance can automatically update all the dns at Cloudflare. If you didn't have the integration setup then during a DR event you'd have to update the dns manually to reflect the new IP.

nqnoc

@twest
Thanks for all your responses. Never tried Cloudflare on Enhance and I was supposing that only 1 Cloudflare key/account would be used and shared for all domains hosted on Enhance.

But from your responses I assume, that each individual domain can have its own key (from client cloudflare account) or I can share my own Cloudflare Account, correct?

Also, one more question: If I have the build-in Enhance DNS cluster (PowerDNS) enabled, can I have at the same time domains that use the Enhance DNS and others that use Cloudflare DNS?
Thanks!

twest

nqnoc you can use 1 cloudflare key/account, but you would need to setup all customer domains on your CF account or if they have their own CF account they would need to give your CF account admin access - that way the token would work/have access it needs to update domains. On the Enhance side, you would have the one api token (that you setup in CF to have access to all domains your account can access) that you would then setup in the integrations section of each customer's website (you setup the integration/token, then in the dns of each domain you activate the integration, at which point Enhance dns manager controls the CF dns).

None of that setup at any point is automated in any way, you have to manage it all. The "one api token" is just saving a small step where you can reuse the same token on every customer's integration section. Once the setup is completed then there's some automation that can take place, like when you migrate a website between servers, DR, adding subdomains - all those things will update dns automatically at CF.

Yes you can use your own custom dns servers running in your cluster and also use the cloudflare integration. In a practical sense all this would mean is some of your customers would be using your custom dns servers and some customers would be using cloudflare dns servers.