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Convert secondary setup to partial setup

If you initially set up incoming zone transfers (Cloudflare as secondary), you can later convert your zone to use a partial setup.

Footnotes

  1. Meaning you have one or more subdomains (sub.example.com) added to Cloudflare as their own zone, separate from your apex domain (example.com). ↩

Follow the steps below to achieve this conversion.

1. Stop transferring the zone

  1. Log in to the Cloudflare dashboard ↗ and select your account and zone.
  2. Go to DNS > Settings > DNS Zone Transfers and select Manage linked peers.
  3. Unlink the peer and select Save.

At this point, your zone will be read-only.

2. Configure your authoritative DNS provider

  1. (Optional) If you are also migrating to a new authoritative DNS provider, export a zone file from the previous provider and import it into the new one.

  2. At your authoritative DNS provider, create CNAME records pointing to {your-hostname}.cdn.cloudflare.net for every hostname you wish to proxy through Cloudflare.

    Example CNAME record at authoritative DNS provider

    The CNAME record for www.example.com would be:

    www.example.com CNAME www.example.com.cdn.cloudflare.net

  3. At your authoritative DNS provider, remove any previously existing A, AAAA, or CNAME records referencing the hostnames you want to proxy through Cloudflare. For these hostnames, leave only the records pointing to {your-hostname}.cdn.cloudflare.net.

3. Convert your Cloudflare zone

  1. Back at your Cloudflare zone, confirm that you have all the A, AAAA, or CNAME DNS records needed for the hostnames you pointed to {your-hostname}.cdn.cloudflare.net in the previous step. You can also delete any DNS records that have a different type, as they will no longer resolve once you convert your zone to a partial setup.

  2. Use the Edit Zone endpoint with type set to partial to convert the zone type. Existing DNS records will not be affected.

  3. On DNS > Records ↗, get the Verification TXT Record and add it at your authoritative DNS provider.

    Example verification record

    A verification record for sub.example.com might be:

    TypeNameContent
    TXTcloudflare-verify.sub.example.com966215192-518620144

    If your authoritative DNS provider automatically appends DNS record name fields with your domain, make sure to only insert cloudflare-verify as the record name. Otherwise, it may result in an incorrect record name, such as cloudflare-verify.sub.example.com.sub.example.com.

    After creating the record, you can use this Dig Web Interface link ↗ to search (dig) for cloudflare-verify.<YOUR DOMAIN> and validate if it is working.

4. Update nameservers

At your domain registrar (or parent zone), update the nameservers. In a partial (CNAME) setup, only the nameservers of your external DNS provider should be listed.

  • Remove any secondary.cloudflare.com nameservers if you used to have them.
  • If you are also migrating to a new authoritative DNS provider, add your new nameservers.
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