Cloudflare SSL without using Cloudflare nameservers

I have used Cloudflare on some, but not all my own sites for several years now, so I am reasonably familiar with the way it works. On client websites it’s not something I generally enable.

At the moment I am in the process of building a website for a client here in the UK that will replace his existing site. For some reason that is not clear he is using a German based web host and I planned to host it on my reseller server like my other clients.

The part I am confused about is that the nameservers for his current site point to the German web host, yet he has an SSL certificate from Cloudflare and I didn’t think that would be possible. Can anybody shed any light here on what could be happening?

I have asked the client but he has no idea about the set up or why it is like that. He is also accessing email via a web browser rather than email client, so there is quite a lot to sort out here.

My chief concern is that there may be hidden problems here when I try to switch those nameservers. My own web host applies a Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate by default when I add a new domain and all of this is rather perplexing with that SSL certificate. I wasn’t sure whether I should post this here or under the DNS section.

That web host is probably a Cloudflare Hosting Partner, so their DNS is tied into Cloudflare.

Go ahead and switch those name servers to point to whatever is hosting his new site.

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OK, thank you for that. I didn’t think that was possible or likely, but I shall also try to check with the current web host for confirmation. One concern I had was that he might have an account with Cloudflare without even knowing it, along with settings that could really upset the migration.

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Curiously my client is using the same web host as another user here that had problems when trying to use Cloudflare. Strato.de compatibility?

I’ll have to do some more research.

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