Learn the purpose of common DNS records and how you can add or delete those records at Cloudflare.
What is DNS?
DNS translates domain names to IP addresses and that's why it is often called the "phonebook of the Internet." For details on DNS and its purpose on the Internet, visit our what is DNS Learning Center. For DNS records not covered in this article, visit our Learning Center guide on DNS records.
Adding DNS records
When you first add a domain to Cloudflare, Cloudflare scans for common DNS records and adds them to the DNS area of your dashboard.
If you need to add DNS records manually:
1. Within a specific account and domain, go to DNS.
2. Select Add record.
3. Based on the record Type, you may have to fill out different fields:
IP address resolution (at least one required for each domain)
Purpose: A and AAAA Records direct browser requests to an origin web server (A for IPv4 addresses and AAAA for IPv6 addresses).
Fields:
- Name: A subdomain or the root domain, which must:
- Be 63 characters or less
- Start with a letter and end with a letter or digit
- Only contain letters, digits, or hyphens (underscores are allowed but discouraged in A and CNAME records)
- IPv4/IPv6 address: Your origin web server address (cannot be a Cloudflare IP)
- TTL: Time to live (only available if traffic is not proxied through Cloudflare)
- Proxy status: Select the cloud icon to change proxy status. If your record is proxied, that means that Cloudflare is:
- Hiding the origin IP address from attackers
- Caching
- Storing an HTTPS certificate on its edge servers
- Providing support for Page Rules, Caching, Firewall, and more
Notes:
If you want to sustainably spread traffic across multiple domains, check out Cloudflare Load Balancing.
Though you could spread traffic with multiple A or AAAA records — because Cloudflare alternates requests based on each record — this approach might send your traffic to unreachable IP addresses. Load balancing provides a much more reliable solution.
Purpose:
CNAME records direct browser requests to an origin web server, but — unlike an A or AAA record — do so via a hostname like www.example.com instead of an IP address.
Fields:
- Name: A subdomain or the root domain, which must:
- Be 63 characters or less
- Start with a letter and end with a letter or digit
- Only contain letters, digits, or hyphens (underscores allowed but discouraged)
- Target: The hostname where traffic should be directed
- TTL: Time to live (only available if traffic is not proxied through Cloudflare)
- Proxy status: Select the cloud icon to change proxy status. If your record is proxied, that means that Cloudflare is:
- Hiding the origin IP address from attackers
- Caching
- Storing an HTTPS certificate on its edge servers
- Providing support for Page Rules, Caching, Firewall, and more
Notes:
You can use CNAME records to point to other CNAME records (www.example2.com --> www.example1.com --> www.example.com), but the final record must point to a hostname with a valid IP address (and therefore a valid A or AAAA record).
Email authentication or domain validation
Purpose: TXT records are commonly used for mail authentication. Review the SPF and DKIM sections of this guide for examples.
Important fields:
- Name: A subdomain or the root domain, which must:
- Be 63 characters or less
- Start with a letter and end with a letter or digit
- Only contain letters, digits, or hyphens
- Content: Must be 2048 characters or less.
Purpose: MX records are necessary for delivery of email to a mail server. Any MX record Server name requires a corresponding A record that lists the IP address of the mail server.
How to:
Since Cloudflare does not proxy SMTP traffic, you need to:
1. Create a DNS-only (gray-clouded) A record for a mail subdomain (mail.example.com) that points to the IP address of your mail server.
2. Create a DNS-only (gray-clouded) MX record that points to that subdomain (mail.example.com handles mail for example.com).
Notes:
The name of a typical MX record is the root domain such as example.com. However, contact your email hosting provider to confirm the MX Name and Mail server.
DKIM records are a type of TXT record that associate email messages with domain names.
For help setting up a TXT record for DKIM, visit our Email Record wizard.
SPF records are a type of TXT record that lists all the servers authorized to send emails from a particular domain.
For help setting up a TXT record for SPF, visit our Email Record wizard.
DMARC records are a type of TXT record that allows an email recipient to know if the email is protected by SPF and/or DKIM.
For help setting up a TXT record for DMARC, visit our Email Record wizard.
Specialized DNS records
Refer to our support guide dedicated to configuring CAA records.
Purpose: A DNS service record (SRV) specifies a host and port for specific services like voice over IP (VOIP), instant messaging, and more.
Fields:
- Name: A subdomain or the root domain, which must:
- Be 63 characters or less
- Start with a letter and end with a letter or digit
- Only contain letters, digits, or hyphens
- For more details about other SRV fields, see SRV records.
Purpose: A PTR record links a domain name to an IP address. Cloudflare only allows PTR records for Forward DNS resolution.
Important fields:
- Name: A subdomain or the root domain, which must:
- Be 63 characters or less
- Start with a letter and end with a letter or digit
- Only contain letters, digits, or hyphens
Notes:
Because of how Cloudflare works — responding to DNS queries with its own dynamic IP addresses — PTR records cannot be added to most Cloudflare accounts or for reverse DNS lookups:
- If you are a customer with an Enterprise domain and using the DNS Firewall, contact customer support for assistance.
- To set up a PTR record for email messages, contact the provider of your mail server's IP address
If you are using Cloudflare as your authoritative DNS, you do not need to configure an SOA record.
Cloudflare automatically creates your SOA record when you migrate your domain to Cloudflare.
SVCB (Service Binding) is a multi-purposed DNS record. Its main advantage is that it provides a client with information about how it should communicate with an origin server/endpoint/service. Its other advantage is that it allows you to have an alias (like a CNAME) at the apex, or if needed, multiple aliases.
The SVCB Record has two forms: an alias form and a service form.
An alias form allows the SVCB record to alias to another name, or to multiple names. Meanwhile, the service form provides connection information for a service endpoint.
The alias form serves the same purpose as a CNAME record, but it also allows zone owners to have an alias record at the apex, without it being a CNAME at the apex (not allowed, per https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1912). SVCB records also support multiple aliases, which is important because it allows you to build origin pools with different configurations. For example, you can have these records:
example.com HTTPS 0 quic.example.com
example.com HTTPS 0 failover.cdn.net
which indicates different HTTPS configurations for two origins on the same record. This is useful in case one origin supports HTTP/2 and the other supports HTTP/3. Another use case for this are multi-CDN setups. By having multiple aliases on one record, you can say "communicate to Cloudflare over this protocol and communicate to this_cdn over this protocol".
The current format of the service form only defines a few keys like ALPN and client hello config, but you could in theory extend it to configure a load balancing on the pool with keys like "lb-strategy=roundrobin" or stuff like that, that the client or proxy could use.
HTTPS (HTTPS Service) record is a type of SVCB record specific to the HTTP protocol. SVCB has exactly the same format as HTTPS, but HTTPS is a separate type because it tells the client that the protocol for an origin is HTTPS regardless of the port used. If you want to use this for non-HTTP traffic, like Spectrum, the SVCB record is a better fit.
4. When finished entering information, select Save.
For questions about a DNS record not listed in the table above, visit our Learning Center.
Cloudflare can also proxy certain DNS records. Please visit our guide on which records are appropriate to proxy.
Deleting DNS Records
1. Within a specific account and domain, go to DNS.
2. On a specific record, select Edit.
3. Select Delete. A confirmation dialog appears.
4. Select Delete again to confirm.
Should the cloud icon beside my DNS record be orange or gray?
By default, only A and CNAME records that handle web traffic (HTTP and HTTPs) can be proxied to Cloudflare. All other DNS records should be toggled to a gray cloud. For further details, see our support guide