Cloudflare

Summary

Cloudflare is an edge platform commonly used for DNS hosting, proxying, TLS, tunnels, and access control. In self-hosted environments, it is often the public-facing layer in front of privately managed infrastructure.

Why it matters

Cloudflare can reduce operational burden for public DNS, certificates, and internet exposure. It becomes especially useful when services need a controlled edge while the underlying infrastructure remains private or partially private.

Core concepts

Authoritative DNS hosting
Proxy mode for HTTP and selected proxied traffic
Zero Trust and Access controls
Tunnels for publishing services without opening inbound ports directly
CDN and caching features for web workloads

Practical usage

Cloudflare commonly fits into infrastructure like this:

Client -> Cloudflare edge -> reverse proxy or tunnel -> application

Typical uses:

Public DNS for domains and subdomains
Cloudflare Tunnel for selected internal apps
Access policies in front of sensitive web services

Best practices

Keep public DNS records documented and intentional
Use tunnels or private access controls for admin-facing services when appropriate
Understand which services are proxied and which are DNS-only
Review TLS mode and origin certificate behavior carefully

Pitfalls

Assuming proxy mode works identically for every protocol
Forgetting that Cloudflare becomes part of the trust and availability path
Mixing internal admin services with public publishing defaults
Losing track of which records are authoritative in Cloudflare versus internal DNS

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