Issues with Cloudflare for SaaS and CNAME Record on Namecheap DNS

[saadiccsidali218]

What is the name of the domain?

starforge.site

What is the issue you’re encountering

CNAME records not updating

What feature, service or problem is this related to?

Secondary DNS

Screenshot of the error

[saadiccsidali218]

Hello everyone,

I’m building a product similar to Vercel or Shopify, where users can point their domains to my platform, and I manage everything from there. I found Cloudflare for SaaS, which seems like the perfect solution, but I haven’t been able to get it to work as expected.

Specifically, I’m having trouble with the CNAME record on Namecheap DNS. For some reason, the CNAME doesn’t seem to update, whereas the A record works fine, and I can see an immediate change. The documentation is a bit unclear in this area, and I’m unsure if there’s something I’m missing or a potential issue with Namecheap.

Additionally, I would love to enable my clients to purchase domains directly through Cloudflare.

Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

[epic.network]

Welcome to the Cloudflare Community.

Can you share an exact name that you are having difficulty with? If you can share details on what values you are expecting to see and what happens when you try to set them, that might also be useful.

[saadiccsidali218]

Thanks for taking the time to respond. The issue I’m facing is that when I follow the guide and add the correct DNS records, I’m not getting any response back from my server. Sometimes, when I experiment with the records, I end up with an SSL cipher mismatch. I’ve tried multiple variations of the CNAME, even deleting and re-entering the data, but it still didn’t work.

As I mentioned in my original post, I’m trying to create a service similar to Vercel or Shopify, where users can point their domains to my platform. I’ve noticed that both services also provide an A record option, but I don’t want to give users my server’s IP address, as it defeats the purpose of using Cloudflare (CF). I tried using the dig command to find my Cloudflare IP, but when I set it up, I got a generic error saying,

“This website doesn’t belong to Cloudflare.”

Any help or guidance would be much appreciated. Maybe I’m approaching this the wrong way?

[epic.network]

@saadiccsidali218

when I follow the guide

What guide? Are you using the Configuring Cloudflare for SaaS documentation? Which step in the guide are you encountering the difficulty?

What is the name of your Cloudflare for SaaS domain? Is it starforge.site? Are you using shop.starforge.site as the custom hostname CNAME target?

What is the custom hostname in the customer domain? Is it www.storesdz.com?

I have no idea what you are showing in your image labeled with (NO CNAME?), but there is a CNAME for www.storesdz.com that points to shop.starforge.site. Your Namecheap DNS seems to have the wrong hostname set in the CNAME used for DCV certificate issuance, though. You have it using _acme-challenge.storesdz.com.storesdz.com which does not match the example shown in your image labeled CF DASHBOARD. Not having a certificate for your custom hostname would explain SSL errors. Is there a reason you aren’t using the recommended HTTP DCV?

Your dig results show Cloudflare proxy IPs. You won’t be able to use them with an A record on an apex name. Allowing Apex Proxying requires an Enterprise agreement.

What is the URL Redirect Record that you show at www? You cannot have any other record type at the same label as a CNAME.