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Set up a primary zone (Full setup)

Cloudflare DNS offers a few different setup options. A primary setup (also known as full) is the most common and the only one available for Free or Pro plans. For details, refer to About. For more introductory context, refer to Concepts.

Before you begin

Make sure that you:

1. Add your domain to Cloudflare

  1. Log in to the Cloudflare dashboard ↗.

    Go to Domains

  2. Select Onboard a domain.

  3. Enter your apex domain (for example, example.com) and choose how you would like to add your DNS records.

  4. Select Continue and choose a plan ↗.

DNS records quick scan

Cloudflare can automatically scan for your records and add them to the DNS zone for you, or you can add records manually. These records show up under your domain on the DNS Records ↗ page of the dashboard.

2. Review your DNS records

Your DNS records must be accurate for your domain to work properly. If you don't know what DNS records are, consider the video below for a quick explanation.

Common records

Since the quick scan is not guaranteed to find all existing DNS records, you need to review your records, paying special attention to the following:

  • Zone apex records (example.com)

    More about zone apex records

    Zone apex refers to the domain or subdomain that you are adding to Cloudflare.

    Usually, the zone apex record makes your domain accessible by visitors. In this case, the necessary record type (A, AAAA, or CNAME) and its content will depend on the provider that hosts your website or application.

    If you are using Cloudflare Workers, refer to Custom domains.

    If you are using other providers, look for their guidance on how to connect domains managed on external DNS services. Then, make sure you have the records required by your hosting provider on your DNS records table at Cloudflare.

  • Subdomain records (www.example.com or blog.example.com)

    More about subdomain records

    Most subdomains serve a specific purpose within the overall context of your website. For example, blog.example.com might be your blog, support.example.com could be your customer help portal, and store.example.com would be your e-commerce site.

    Even if you do not require specific subdomains, you might want to set up at least a subdomain record on www. It will usually point to the same content as what you have on the apex domain (example.com) or use a redirect. Having a subdomain DNS record on www helps guarantee that a visitor who types www. in front of your domain address can still find your website or application.

  • Email records

    More about email records

    Depending on your business needs, you can configure DNS records so that you can use your domain to receive emails, receive and send emails from your domain, or prevent others from sending emails on your behalf (spoofing).

    Below are some examples of what those DNS records might look like. The exact values for your DNS mail records depend on your email provider. If you have issues, review the Troubleshooting and contact your email service provider to confirm your DNS records are correct.

    TypeNameContentProxy statusTTL
    Amail192.0.2.1DNS OnlyAuto
    MXexample.com5 john.mx.example-server.testDNS OnlyAuto
    TXT_dmarc"v=DMARC1; p=reject; sp=...DNS OnlyAuto
    TXT*._domainkey"v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=..."DNS OnlyAuto
    TXTexample.com"v=spf1 ip4:..."DNS OnlyAuto

Proxy status

Each A, AAAA, and CNAME record has a proxy status toggle:

  • Proxied (orange cloud): web traffic goes through the Cloudflare network, which provides caching, DDoS protection, and other security features.
  • DNS only (gray cloud): Cloudflare returns the DNS record value but does not proxy traffic. Use this for CNAME records that verify your domain for third-party services.

3. Change your nameservers

Your domain will be assigned two authoritative Cloudflare nameservers. Nameservers are specialized servers that store your domain's DNS records and "answer" requests from browsers by providing the specific IP address needed to connect to your website.

3.1. Get nameserver names

Your assigned nameservers are displayed as part of the onboarding flow. If you need to find them once again, go the zone Overview page.

Go to Overview

3.2. Log in to your registrar

Log in to the admin account for your domain registrar. If you do not know your provider, use ICANN Lookup ↗.

3.3. Turn off DNSSEC

If your domain has DNSSEC1 active, you must turn it off at your registrar before replacing nameservers. Changing nameservers while DNSSEC is active can cause your domain to become unreachable. You can re-enable DNSSEC through Cloudflare after your domain is active.

Provider-specific DNSSEC instructions

This is not an exhaustive list, but the following links may be helpful:

3.4. Update your registrar

  1. Remove your existing authoritative nameservers.

  2. Add the nameservers provided by Cloudflare. If their names are not copied exactly, your DNS will not resolve correctly.

Provider-specific instructions

This is not an exhaustive list of provider-specific instructions, but the following links may be helpful:

To avoid common issues, refer to our Nameserver replacement checklist.

3.5. Verify changes

Wait up to 24 hours while your registrar updates your nameservers.

When your domain is Active:

  • You will receive an email from Cloudflare.
  • Your domain will have a status of Active on the Domains page of your account.
  • Online tools such as https://www.whatsmydns.net/ ↗ will show your Cloudflare-assigned nameservers (most of these tools use cached query results, so it may take longer for them to show the updated nameservers).
  • CLI commands will show your Cloudflare-assigned nameservers
*macOS/Linux*


whois <DOMAIN_NAME>
dig ns <DOMAIN_NAME> @1.1.1.1
dig ns <DOMAIN_NAME> @8.8.8.8
dig <DOMAIN_NAME> +trace


*Windows*


nslookup -type=ns <DOMAIN_NAME> 1.1.1.1
nslookup -type=ns <DOMAIN_NAME> 8.8.8.8

4. Re-enable DNSSEC

If you turned off DNSSEC before updating your nameservers, you can now re-enable DNSSEC through Cloudflare to protect your domain from spoofing.

Footnotes

  1. A security feature that protects DNS records from spoofing ↩