Cloudflare is a free service that can speed up your website and protect it from attacks. It works with AISweb hosting, but your DNS moves to Cloudflare, so you'll manage records there instead of cPanel.
Before You Start
- Your website and email should already be working on AISweb
- In cPanel, open Zone Editor and note down your records, especially A, MX and TXT records
Setting Up Cloudflare
- Create a free account at cloudflare.com
- Click Add a domain and enter your domain
- Choose the Free plan
- Cloudflare imports your DNS records. Check them against the list from cPanel and add anything missing, especially MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC
- Make sure records for email (mail, MX) are set to DNS only (grey cloud), not proxied
- Cloudflare gives you two nameservers. Change your nameservers to those instead of the AISweb ones
Important Settings
- SSL/TLS mode: set this to Full (strict). Using "Flexible" causes "too many redirects" errors
- Your AISweb free SSL certificate keeps working behind Cloudflare
Things to Know
- DNS changes: cPanel's Zone Editor no longer controls your domain. Make DNS changes in Cloudflare
- Email Deliverability in cPanel: will show warnings, because it can't see Cloudflare's records. Copy the SPF and DKIM values shown there into Cloudflare
- New subdomains: add a matching record in Cloudflare whenever you create one in cPanel
If you're not sure Cloudflare is right for you, ask us. For most small sites, our hosting is fast without it.
