Introduction

Security and performance are very important for any website or application. If you are concerned about them, then at some point in time you might have heard of Cloudflare. CloudFlare is a leading security provider for web applications. It is also a DNS provider, and Cloudflare DNS is one of the fastest DNS on earth! Choosing Cloudflare for your website is one of the best decisions you can take to make your sites fast and secure!

We at FlexiCloud Hosting always suggest that you use CloudFlare services in one way or the other.

What is Cloudflare

Cloudflare is a content delivery network (CDN) and cloud security platform that enhances website optimization, security, and performance. Acting as an intermediary between a website’s server and its visitors, Cloudflare boosts the speed and reliability of websites while protecting them from online threats.

In today’s world, websites and web applications are ubiquitous, serving a variety of functions. While many of these platforms are designed to be secure and private, small businesses and non-tech individuals often struggle with implementing robust security measures. Cloudflare addresses this need by providing enhanced security and performance for such websites. As an Internet infrastructure provider, Cloudflare aims to improve the security, performance, and reliability of anything connected to the Internet. It offers most of its core features for free and provides an easy setup process. With both a user interface (UI) and an API for managing websites, Cloudflare operates on a freemium model, offering essential features at no cost with some limitations.

Features of Cloudflare are as follows

• Content Delivery Network (CDN) Distributes content across a global network of servers to reduce latency and improve load times. Caches content in multiple locations worldwide, serving it from the nearest server to the user.
•  DDoS Protection Shields websites from Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks, which aim to overwhelm servers with traffic to disrupt service. Uses a vast network to absorb and mitigate large volumes of malicious traffic, ensuring the website remains accessible to legitimate users.
• Web Application Firewall (WAF) Protects web applications by filtering and monitoring HTTP traffic to block potentially harmful requests. Analyzes incoming traffic based on customizable security rules to detect and block threats like SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS).
• SSL/TLS Encryption Ensures secure data transfer between users and websites by encrypting the data. Automatically issues free SSL/TLS certificates and manages their renewal, securing the communication channel.
• Access Control Provides tools for controlling who can access different parts of a website or application. Implements features like IP whitelisting/blacklisting, user authentication, and granular access permissions.
• Load Balancing Distributes traffic across multiple servers to ensure reliability and uptime. Monitors server health and directs traffic to the best-performing servers, providing failover support in case of server failures.
• DNS Services Provides fast and reliable DNS resolution, reducing the time it takes for a domain to resolve to an IP address. Uses a global network of DNS servers to ensure quick and reliable domain resolution, improving website load times and reliability.
• Workers Offers a robust API for integrating and managing Cloudflare’s features programmatically. Provides endpoints for automating tasks, configuring settings, and retrieving data, allowing seamless integration with other systems and workflows.
• Free Plan Provides essential features at no cost, with options to upgrade for additional capabilities and higher limits. Users can sign up for a free plan that includes basic security, performance, and reliability features, with the option to upgrade to paid plans for more advanced functionality and higher usage limits.
  

Starting with CloudFlare

To start with Cloudflare, you need to have a domain or application on a shared hosting or a cloud hosting account. Then you need to create a Cloudflare account and login.

1. Click on Add Site button on top right
2. Enter the site name and hit enter
   

Once you add the site, Cloudflare will query your DNS settings and try to copy them across. It will normally copy all the DNS records including Address records, MX , TXT CNAME, etc. I have seen that it fails to copy the subdomain records if there are any.

So you need to make sure that the subdomain records are replicated too.

After that, it will ask you to change the name servers, which you have to do from the respective domain registrar as well.

Once the name server is changed, it will take a few hours for the site to get activated. Once done you need to enable the Cloudflare icon in the DNS area so that the DNS requests will go through the Cloudflare algorithm.

How Cloudflare Works

Cloudflare offers a comprehensive suite of services designed to enhance your website’s performance, security, and reliability. It stores copies of your site’s static content on servers around the globe, reducing latency and speeding up loading times by delivering content from the nearest server. Cloudflare also protects your site from Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks through advanced algorithms and infrastructure that filter out malicious traffic while allowing legitimate visitors through. Its Web Application Firewall (WAF) defends against common threats like SQL injection and cross-site scripting with customizable rules and predefined settings. Cloudflare provides SSL/TLS encryption for secure data transmission, manages encryption certificates, and offers options for automatic renewals. Its DNS services are optimized for speed and reliability, ensuring fast and accurate resolution of domain names. The load balancing feature distributes traffic across multiple servers to prevent overload and offers failover capabilities for continuous availability. Detailed analytics provide insights into traffic patterns, visitor locations, and threat levels to inform optimizations and security measures. With Cloudflare Workers, you can execute serverless JavaScript code on edge servers for tasks like A/B testing and personalization, reducing the load on your own infrastructure. Additionally, Cloudflare’s rate limiting and bot management tools help control requests and distinguish between human visitors and bots to prevent abuse and server overload. Lastly, Cloudflare continuously updates its technology and infrastructure to address emerging threats and introduce new features, ensuring that your site benefits from the latest advancements in web performance and security.

Summary

Cloudflare is a great tool to reduce the load that a site puts towards the server by offloading the content delivery to its edge servers. It also needs that the dynamic content will still be loading from the origin server.

We will discuss more on how to use Cloudflare as a conventional content delivery network, and on how to fix common cloudflare errors in coming posts.