Why cloudflare use CNAME and not NS record?

Zero Trust 1.1.1.1
1

Why the Authoritative nameservers return CNAME and not NS record?

The Authoritative nameservers returns CNAME to the DNS Resolver with the addition of Cloudflare to the domain:
If I send an “wwww.example.com” A record, I would get CNAME back with “wwww.exaple.com.cdn.cliudflare.net”

Why does Cloudflare not return NS record with “clouflare.net” and my resolver will send
“wwww.example.com” A record to Cloudflare server?

If NS record were sent instead and Cloudflare would resolve records without the “.cdn.Cloudflare.net” would it change anything?

Is there a reason for this or did it work in both cases and Cloudflare chose CNAME instead of NS?

Thank you

2

I am afraid I am not entirely sure about your question.

What you seem to be referring to is a CNAME setup

https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020348832-Understanding-a-CNAME-Setup

and a CNAME setup is - as the name suggests - based on CNAME records.

Actually, these are not standard setups anyhow, but do require at least a Business plan. And all other standard setups are very much based on nameservers, or as you put it NS records.

What domain are you actually talking about and on which plan is it?

3

Im asking about CNAME setup for business plan.
If I understand correctly, in the free program I have set the Authoritative nameservers of my DNS provider to send NS record with Cloudflare server.

If I set CNAME Setup my Authoritative nameservers of my DNS provider will return a CNAME record with the addition of Cloudflare (“wwww.exaple.com.cdn.cliudflare.net").

My question is did I understand correctly and both options exist?
Are there any benefits to any of them?

4

NS records are not involved in this. Your WHOIS data at your registrar determines which name servers your domain uses.

Within your own DNS, it sounds like you’re using a CNAME to point to a cloudflare hostname. Most people will use an “A” record to point to their server’s IP address.

Yours sounds like you’re using a third party Cloudflare integration. Probably through your website host.

5

That is correct. With a Business plan you can, but you do not have to use a CNAME setup.

The advantage of a CNAME setup simply is that you do not need to change nameservers. That’s it.

1 Like
6

Thank you both,
I’m trying to understand how CDN works with DNS.

If I sign up for a cloudflare CDN service, how does resolving my site’s URL work?
I would be glad if you could refer me to references to read about it.

7

support.cloudflare.com is the best place to start.

As long as you are on a standard setup all DNS related tasks will be handled by Cloudflare.

8

A post was merged into an existing topic: Domain .GA name not resolving in some countries (DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN)

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