Guides

Either create a Cloudflare account:

• Visit https://dash.cloudflare.com/sign-up
• Enter your Email address and Password.
• Click Create Account.
• The Cloudflare UI asks you to add a site to Cloudflare.

Or log in to an existing account:

• Log in to your Cloudflare account.
• Click on Add site from the top navigation bar.

Then add a site:

• Enter your website’s root domain and then click Add Site. For example, if your website is www.example.com, type example.com.
• Select the free plan.
• Cloudflare attempts to automatically identify your DNS records. This process takes approximately 60 seconds to complete.
• Review whether all DNS records were identified in the DNS query results window, if it's a new domain there likely won't be any.
• Deselect the cloud icons for existing records to just use dns resolution.
• Add an A record using @ for the name, any temporary filler ip address, automatic TTL, and deselect the cloud icon.
• Click Continue.
• Select Continue with default.
• Copy the 2 Cloudflare nameservers displayed.
• Change the nameservers with the domain's registrar, for example to change them with Freenom:
  • Follow Domains if you don't already have a Freenom domain.
  • Log in to My Freenom.
  • Go to My Domains > Manage Domain > Management Tools > Nameservers
  • Enter the nameservers copied from cloudflare.
  • Click Change Nameservers. (It will normally take up to 30 minutes before nameserver changes are distributed within their DNS servers)
• Click Done, check nameservers back on cloudflare.
• Wait until the changes propagate through everything and re-check the domain on cloudflare to finalise it.

Set up a dynamic DNS updating service locally to keep the ip address updated:

• Go to https://dash.cloudflare.com/profile/api-tokens
• Click on View Global API key.
• Enter your password and copy the API key.
• Set up the service (Using a Ubiquiti Edgerouter as the example):
• Log in to the router, probably at https://10.0.0.1 or https://198.164.0.1 and access the Command Line Interface using the CLI button. Or connect using SSH.
• Replace references to eth0 with the active WAN Port, usually eth0 or pppoe0.
• Replace the information in the angle brackets with your domain and login (email/api key) information.
• Enter the following commands:

# Enter configuration mode.
configure
# Configure the dynamic DNS hostname.
set service dns dynamic interface eth0 service custom-cloudflare host-name <subdomain.domain.com>
# Define the dynamic DNS credentials.
set service dns dynamic interface eth0 service custom-cloudflare login <user@domain.com>
set service dns dynamic interface eth0 service custom-cloudflare password <cloudflare-api-key>
# Define the dynamic DNS protocol.
set service dns dynamic interface eth0 service custom-cloudflare protocol cloudflare
# Specify the root domain name for the Cloudflare zone.
set service dns dynamic interface eth0 service custom-cloudflare options zone=<domain.com>
	
# Commit the changes and save the configuration.
commit ; save
	

# You can verify the status and/or force an update of the Dynamic DNS service using the commands below:
show dns dynamic status
update dns dynamic interface eth0