DNS is the very first step in accessing any website, API, or pretty much anything on the Internet, which makes it mission-critical to keeping your site up and running. This week, we are launching two significant changes that allow our customers to better maintain and update their DNS records. For customers who use Cloudflare as their authoritative DNS provider, we’ve added a much asked for feature: confirmation to DNS record edits. For our secondary DNS customers, we’re excited to provide a brand new onboarding experience.

One of the benefits of using Cloudflare DNS is that changes quickly propagate to our 200+ data centers. And I mean very quickly: DNS propagation typically takes <5 seconds worldwide. Our UI was set up to allow customers to edit records, click out of the input box, and boom! The record has propagated!

There are a lot of advantages to fast DNS, but there's also one clear downside – it leaves room for fat fingering. What if you accidentally toggle the proxy icon, or mistype the content of your DNS record? This could result in users not being able to access your website or API and could cause a significant outage. To protect customers from these kinds of mistakes, we've added a Save button for DNS record changes.

Now editing records in the DNS table allows you to take an extra look before committing the change.

The new confirmation layout applies to all record types and affects any content, TTL, or proxy status changes.

Let us know what you think by filling out the feedback survey linked at the top of the DNS tab in the dashboard.

CloudFlare has partnered with a number of CloudFlare Certified Partners to make it simple for website owners that want a faster and safer website. Since signing up for CloudFlare through a hosting partner is different than signing up for CloudFlare directly, we wanted to provide some quick tips to help you get the most out of your CloudFlare experience.

1. You do not need to change your name servers when activating through a hosting partner. You would still manage your DNS entries at your hosting provider or registrar.

2. CloudFlare can only be enabled for CNAME records when activating through a hosting partner. To enable CloudFlare on your root domain (yourdomain.com), which is an A record, you need to have your hosting partner set a 301 redirect from your root domain to www. Not only will the redirect help accelerate and protect the root domain, this will also make the statistics in your CloudFlare account accurate. Note: If you have a naked domain, 'yourdomain.com', and you don't want your visitors to go to 'www.yourdomain.com', then you need to signup directly with CloudFlare.

3. What you should do if you see any of the following error messages after enabling CloudFlare:

"Host Not Configured to Serve Web Traffic" error message will appear on the first request to your site after activating through a partner, then will go away after a few minutes. If it lasts for more than 10 minutes,then contact your hosting provider and our support teams will work together to resolve.

"CloudFlare-nginx 502 Bad Gateway": This is an issue on the CloudFlare network. We deal with these quickly (less than 10 minutes). We publish all announcements regarding our network status on @CloudFlareSys.

"Website is Unavailable": Either your server is offline and we don't have a copy of your site in cache or something on the origin server is blocking CloudFlare's IPs.

If your server is online, then work with your hosting provider to find out what could be blocking CloudFlare's IPs on your server. The most common culprit is a security solution like a firewall like CSF or IP tables. As soon as the block is removed, the error page will disappear.

SSLIf you have SSL on the domain(s), you will need to upgrade to a Pro account. The cost for a Pro account is $20.00 per month for the first website and $5.00 for each additional site. In addition to the SSL support, you will also receive additional security and performance benefits.

Note: You will find the option to upgrade to Pro in your CloudFlare account.

Development ModeIf you are making changes to the static content on your website, temporarily bypass CloudFlare's cache so any changes appear immediately. You can find Development Mode either right in your hosting provider's control panel or by logging in to your CloudFlare account under CloudFlare Settings.

PageRulesPageRules gives you more powerful performance and configuration options, including:Advanced Caching ConfigurationsExcluding URLS from CloudFlare's default caching and security optionsSetting URL forwards and redirects

CloudFlare has developed web content optimization features called Rocket Loader and Auto Minify. Both Rocket Loader and Auto Minify are designed to load your site's resources even faster than the default CloudFlare configuration.

Rocket LoaderRocket Loader will speed up the delivery of your pages by automatically asynchronously loading your JavaScript resources. Rocket Loader works well for websites that have a lot of ads, widgets or plugins.

Auto MinifyRemoves all unnecessary characters from HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to reduce file size.

Note: Both of these features are still in beta. If you encounter any issues, such as a broken plugin or JavaScript not working properly, then please turn the feature off and report any bugs to our team.

To turn on Rocket Loader and Auto Minify, you need to log in to your CloudFlare account and go to CloudFlare Settings.

IPv6 GatewayMake your website IPv6 compatible, by turning on the CloudFlare IPv6 gateway.

The CloudFlare Support Center has answers to a number of questions. Searching our knowledge base is the fastest way to get a quick response to the majority of questions. Don't see the answer to your question? Please contact CloudFlare.

We frequently post about product updates, early beta access to new features, system issues, and giveaways, so we recommend that you follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Google+:

• Facebook

• Twitter

• Google+

Thank you for joining CloudFlare in partnership with your hosting provider.

^{Mother Temple of Besakih in Bali, indonesia by dbillian, on Flickr}

Editor's Note: Since the post has the word "steps" in it, I thought I would include a picture of some steps from a visit to Mother Temple of Besakih in Bali, Indonesia. I had the good fortune of visiting Bali in 2011, and the most amazing thing about the temple is that it is built on the slopes of an active volcano.

CloudFlare's core value is that we speed up and protect any website. For new and current users, we wanted to pull together a handy guide that helps you get the most out of CloudFlare.

1. Best way to Resolve an Issue - 'Pause'

When you sign up for CloudFlare, the service should just work. However, if you notice a problem after activating CloudFlare, do not change nameservers away from CloudFlare. Instead, temporarily deactivate CloudFlare by choosing the 'pause' or 'deactivate' option on your CloudFlare My Websites Page:

Settings → Pause/Deactivate CloudFlare

Changing name servers away from CloudFlare makes it difficult to troubleshoot. If you 'pause' the service, the issue will likely be immediately resolved. Then, contact our technical support team so we can work with you to resolve the root cause.

Also see: Troubleshooting CloudFlare Problems

2. Preserving IP information --> Install modcloudflare (or equivalent)

Since CloudFlare acts as a reverse proxy for websites, CloudFlare's IPs are going to show in your server logs. There is an easy fix to restore original visitor IP for any web server.

If you have issues with things like GeoIP or .htaccess blocks not working properly on your site, installing mod_cloudflare will resolve the problem immediately.

You should also allowlist all of CloudFlare's IP addresses with your hosting provider and on your server.

Note: This is not required if you have activated CloudFlare through a CloudFlare CertifiedPartner.

3. Create PageRules

PageRules gives you more performance and configuration options, including:

• Cache HTML (our default configuration only caches these static content files)

• Exclude certain URLs from CloudFlare features and caching

• 302 redirects

We recommend that you use PageRules to exclude the admin section of yourwebsite from CloudFlare's services. This will ensure you don't see any error messages or have issues updating plugins. The PageRule you will need to create has the following structure for WordPress:

*mydomain.com/wp-admin

4. Familiarize yourself with the CloudFlare settings

CloudFlare offers a number of optional security and performance options that can be turned on or off on your "Settings" page:

My Websites → Settings → CloudFlare settings

Some of the key features that we'd like to highlight:

Make your website IPv6 compatible without having to purchase expensive hardware. CloudFlare's IPv6 Gateway is available to all customers free of charge.

Rocket Loader and Auto Minify are free beta features that will help speed up your website. What they do:

**Rocket Loader:**If you have ads, widgets or plugins on your website, Rocket Loader will speed up the delivery of your pages by automatically asynchronously loading your JavaScript resources.

Auto Minify: Removes unnecessary characters from HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to save on file size.

Note: These features are still in beta. We encourage you to try them but if you see an issue, then just turn them off. Please report the bugs to CloudFlare so our magical engineers can work on fixes.

SSL support can be added to any website on CloudFlare on a paid account.

Paid plans offer additional security and performance features than free accounts. You can see the differences in our comparison chart.

5. Check out the CloudFlare App Store

CloudFlare has partnered with a number of popular web applications to make adding these apps easy. You can get access to any of these services without touching your code or worrying about if they will interfere with another service on your site. The most popular services include:

• Google Analytics : Install Google Analytics on all of your pages

• VigLink: Make money from the content on your website or blog

• CodeGuard: Back up your website content

• Highlight: Add contextual search with one click to your site (developed by CloudFlare)

6. Search our Knowledge Base for FAQs

While we love answering questions from our customers as quickly as possible, many questions can be answered by doing a quick search through CloudFlare's help content.

7. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter

We use Facebook and Twitter as our primary communication channels for announcing new product releases, known system issues and to give users early access to beta features. If you want to know as much as you can about CloudFlare, or if you only have a really quick question to ask, Facebook and Twitter are the best places to go. We also recently launched a Google+ page.

If you ever have a question, please contact us. We read every email that we get and love to hear from our users.

CloudFlare is a service that utilizes proprietary technology to make websites run safer and faster around the world. We currently run 12 data centers (with more on the way) on three continents to provide static content caching, bot filtering and more for all of our users. CloudFlare has created a "pocket guide" for users that have signed up with CloudFlare through a hosting partner cPanel integration.

1. Familiarize yourself with the CloudFlare Settings pageThe CloudFlare Settings page is where you will find all of the key optional features that can be turned on or off. Atlhough some CloudFlare Settings can be found in the control panel for your hosting provider, there are additional key features you can only find on CloudFlare's site including:

There are two beta services we have developed to help speed up websites for our users free of charge, while also not requiring any special configuration on your end.

Rocket Loader makes the JavaScript on your pages load faster by loading the resources asynchronously. If you have ads on your website or any social widgets including Facebook Like, Twitter or Google +, Rocket Loader will make your website feel snappier to your visitors. This service is still in beta, so while we encourage you to try it on your site, if you notice any issues with your apps afterwards, turn it off and then file a bug report.

Auto Minify automatically minifies your code in real-time without you having to change anything or install any plugins.

This service is also in beta, so if you see any issues, you can easily turn it off.

You can set the security level for your website to high, medium, low or essentially off. It defaults to Medium.

Turn this option on when you're making changes to static files (javascript, CSS, images, etc.) on your site that you want to appear immediately.

If you want to clear the CloudFlare cache of all the static files, you can use the Purge Cache option. This is only recommended if you want to remove all of the static content we have cached. The drawback to purging the cache is that you will temporarily lose the performance benefits until the cache rebuilds which can take up to 1 day. If you only want to purge resources related to a recent site change then I recommend that you use Development Mode.

2. Familiarize yourself with your Reporting and Threat Control pagesThe CloudFlare reporting page will show you statistics about visitors and pageviews for your site, including information about when your site was last crawled by a search engine.

The CloudFlare Threat Control page is where you can find out about visitors to your site that were challenged, and is also where you can manage access to your website by allowlisting and blocklisting IPs.

3. Check out CloudFlare's optional appsCloudFlare has recently partnered with a number of great services to add applications on your site with a few clicks of your mouse. Some of the most popular applications include:

• Google Analytics: Install Google Analytics to all of your web pages

• Pingdom: Monitor your website's performance and uptime

• Viglink: Monetize your blog or website with affiliate links

CloudFlare Apps includes a mix of Free and Paid services.

4. Follow us on Facebook or TwitterCloudFlare proactively helps customers resolve basic service issues using these social media channels. In addition to handling basic questions about the service, we often solicit feedback from our users to see what we can do to make the service even better. Oh, and we sometimes surprise our followers with giveaways like CloudFlare t-shirts and CloudFlare laptop stickers.

FacebookTwitter

5. Bookmark our Status PageWe run 12 data centers on three continents - with even more on the way to serve our global customer base - and we are constantly monitoring our systems. To get the most current updates about known service issues, you can follow the:

CloudFlare System status pageCloudFlare Twitter System Status

6. Why should I upgrade to Pro? And how do I upgrade to Pro?With the Pro service, you receive four main additional benefits that free accounts don't have:

1. Faster subsequent page loads (so the second, third and fourth page loads are much quicker)

2. Web Application Firewall to protect from comment spam, SQL injection and XSS attacks

3. SSL compatibility

4. Stats updates every 15 minutes (vs 24 hours)

The Pro service is done on a month by month basis so you can easily try it for a month by choosing "Upgrade to Pro" in your CloudFlare account.

You can upgrade to Pro by going to your CloudFlare settings for the domain you would like to upgrade to pro.

Please do the following to upgrade to Pro:CloudFlare->My Websites->Settings >CloudFlare Settings-> Change from Free to Pro to open the billing information page->then come back to the settings page for the domain to make sure you change the domain from free to Pro.

Have additional questions? Have a suggestion to help improve the CloudFlare service? Please contact us.

CloudFlare is a service that has powerful underlying technology. We run 10 (with more coming) data centers around the world and do DNS, caching, bot filtering and more for all of our users. Despite all of this technology, our goal is to make the service simple for our users to use. Here is a "pocket guide" for use after signing up with CloudFlare.

If you need to add or edit entries to your DNS records, you can doso by going to:

Your Websites->Settings->DNS settings

While CloudFlare can resolve DNS for all of your subdomains, CloudFlare can only proxy domains that would be considered web traffic (www, blog, etc.). Subdomains like ftp, mail should be marked with a gray cloud. You can find the entire list of what should be marked with a gray cloud here.

If you have a wildcard (*) subdomain, CloudFlare does not proxywildcard domains. You have to explicitly list the subdomains that you want to be accelerated and protected CloudFlare in your DNS zone file.

The CloudFlare Settings page is where you will find all of the optional features that can be turned on or off. Some key features on this page include:

CloudFlare Rocket LoaderThis is a new beta service that we are really excited about. For websites that have any third-party apps like ads or widgets, Rocket Loader helps make the apps load faster by loading the JavaScript asynchronously. The result are pages that feel much snappier! This service is still in beta, so while we encourage you to try it on your site, if you notice any issues with your apps afterwards, turn it off and then file a bug report here.

Basic Security Level SettingsYou can set the security level for your website to high, medium, low or essentially off. It defaults to Medium.

Development ModeTurn this option on when you're making changes to static files(javascript, CSS, images, etc.) on your site that you want to appearimmediately.

Purge CacheIf you want to clear the CloudFlare cache of all the static files for a domain, you can use Purge Cache.

To get to CloudFlare Settings:CloudFlare --> Websites --> Settings (pull down menu) --> CloudFlare Settings

Since CloudFlare acts as a reverse proxy for you site, your visitor logs will show our IP addresses unless you make a modification to your server. We have a group of resources available here, including for Apache servers.

Note: WordPress users have the option of installing the WordPressplugin Joomla users have the option of installing the Joomlaplugin.

Whitelisting our IP ranges with your hosting provider or in your IP tables ensures all of your website's requests are served properly.

Note: CloudFlare customers that are activated through our hostingpartners (full list can be found here), includingHostGator, VEXXHost, CoolHandle, A2 Hosting are not required to takethis step.

We run 10 data centers on three continents and we are constantly monitoring our systems. To get the most current updates, you can follow our:

• System status page

• Twitter System Status account

With the Pro service, you receive four main additional benefits:

1. Faster subsequent page loads (so the second, third and fourth page loads are much quicker)

2. Web Application Firewall to protect from comment spam, SQL injection and XSS attacks

3. SSL compatibility

4. Stats updates every 15 minutes (vs 24 hours)

The Pro service is done on a month by month basis so you can easily try it for a month by choosing "Upgrade to Pro" in your CloudFlare account.

Also see:

• CloudFlare and accessing cpanel

• CloudFlare and how to ftp or ssh

• Frequently used CloudFlare Settings

If you ever have a question, please contact us. We read every email that we get and love to hear from our users.