Set up apex proxying
To set up Cloudflare for SaaS for apex proxying - as opposed to the normal setup - perform the following steps.
Before you begin
Before you start creating custom hostnames:
- Add your zone to Cloudflare (this should be within the account associated with your IP prefixes).
- Enable Cloudflare for SaaS for your zone.
- (optional) Review the following documentation:
- API documentation (if you have not worked with the Cloudflare API before).
- Hostname prioritization.
- Certificate validation.
Initial setup
When you first enable Cloudflare for SaaS, you need to perform a few steps prior to creating any custom hostnames.
Step 1 - Get IP range
With apex proxying, you can either bring your own IP range or use a set of IP addresses provided by Cloudflare.
For more details on this step, reach out to your account team.
Step 2 - Create fallback origin
The fallback origin is where Cloudflare will route traffic sent to your custom hostnames (must be proxied).
To create your fallback origin:
- Create a proxied
A,AAAA, orCNAMErecord pointing to the IP address of your fallback origin (where Cloudflare will send custom hostname traffic).
| Type | Name | IPv4 address | Proxy status |
|---|---|---|---|
A | proxy-fallback | 192.0.2.1 | Proxied |
- Designate that record as your fallback origin.
- Log into the Cloudflare dashboard.
- Select your account and zone.
- Go to SSL/TLS > Custom Hostnames.
- For Fallback Origin, enter the hostname for your fallback origin.
- Select Add Fallback Origin.
Using the hostname of the record you just created, update the fallback origin value.
- Once you have added the fallback origin, confirm that its status is Active.
Per-hostname setup
You need to perform the following steps for each custom hostname.
Step 1 — Plan for validation
Before you create a hostname, you need to plan for:
- Certificate validation: Upon successful validation, the certificates are deployed to Cloudflare’s global network.
- Hostname validation: Upon successful validation, Cloudflare proxies traffic for this hostname.
You must complete both these steps for the hostname to work as expected.
Step 2 — Create custom hostname
After planning for certification and hostname validation, you can create the custom hostname.
To create a custom hostname:
- Log in to the Cloudflare dashboard and select your account.
- Select your Cloudflare for SaaS application.
- Navigate to SSL/TLS > Custom Hostnames.
- Click Add Custom Hostname.
- Add your customer’s hostname
app.customer.comand set the relevant options, including:- Choosing the Validation method.
- Whether you want to Enable wildcard, which adds a
*.<custom-hostname>SAN to the custom hostname certificate. For more details, refer to Hostname priority. - Choosing a value for Custom origin server.
- Click Add Custom Hostname.
To create a custom hostname using the API, use a POST command on the /zone/:zone_id/custom_hostnames endpoint.
The response contains the complete definition of the new custom hostname.
Step 3 - Have customer create DNS record
To finish the custom hostname setup, your customer can set up either an A or CNAME record at their authoritative DNS provider.
A record
If your customer uses an A record at their authoritative DNS provider, they need to point their hostname to the IP prefixed allocated for your account.
Your customer’s A record might look like the following:
CNAME record
If your customer uses a CNAME record at their authoritative DNS, they need to point their hostname to your CNAME target 1.
Your customer’s CNAME record might look like the following:
Service continuation
If your customer is also using Cloudflare for their domain, they should keep their DNS record pointing to your SaaS provider in place for as long as they want to use your service.
For more details, refer to Remove custom hostnames.
If you have regional services set up for your custom hostnames, Cloudflare always uses the processing region associated with your DNS target record (instead of the processing region of any custom origins). ↩︎