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#+date: [2022-06-01 Wed 00:00:00]
#+title: Ditching Cloudflare
#+description: Why I moved my DNS away from Cloudflare, and how I did it.
#+slug: ditching-cloudflare
#+filetags: :privacy:security:
* Registrar
After spending a year or so using Cloudflare for DNS (Domain Name System) only -
no proxying or applications - I spent the last few months using Cloudflare
Tunnels and Cloudflare Access to protect my self-hosted websites and
applications via their proxy traffic model.
However, I have never liked using Cloudflare due to their increasingly large
share of control over web traffic, as well as their business model of being a
MITM (man-in-the-middle) for all of your traffic.
So, as of today, I have switched over to [[https://njal.la][Njalla]] as my registrar and DNS manager.
I was able to easily transfer my domains over rapidly, with only one domain
taking more than 15-30 minutes to propagate.
+I do still have two domains sitting at Cloudflare for the moment while I decide
if they're worth the higher rates (one domain is 30€ and the other is 45€).+
#+begin_quote
*Update (2022.06.03)*: I ended up transferring my final two domains over to
Njalla, clearing my Cloudflare account of personal data, and deleting the
Cloudflare account entirely. /I actually feel relieved to have moved on to a
provider I trust./
#+end_quote
* DNS
As noted above, I'm using Njalla exclusively for DNS configurations on my
domains.
However, the transfer process was not ideal. As soon as the domains transferred
over, I switched the nameservers from Cloudflare to Njalla and lost most of the
associated DNS records. So, the majority of the time spent during the migration
was simply re-typing all the DNS records back in one-by-one.
This would be much simpler if I were able to edit the plain-text format of the
DNS configuration. I was able to do that at a past registrar (perhaps it was
[[https://gandi.net/][Gandi.net]]?) and it made life a lot easier.
** Dynamic DNS Updates
I have built an easy Python script to run (or set-up in =cron= to run
automatically) that will check my server's IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4)and
IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6), compare it to Njalla, and update the DNS
records if they don't match. You can see the full script and process in my other
post: [[https://cleberg.net/blog/njalla-dns-api.html][Automating Dynamic DNS Record Updates via Njalla API]].
I haven't used this other method, but I do know that you can create =Dynamic=
DNS records with Njalla that [[https://njal.la/docs/ddns/][work for updating dynamic subdomains]].
** Njalla's DNS Tool
One neat upside to Njalla is that they have a [[https://check.njal.la/dns/][DNS lookup tool]] that provides a
lot of great information for those of you (AKA: me) who hate using the =dig=
command.
This was very useful for monitoring a couple of my transferred domains to see
when the changes in nameservers, records, and DNSSEC (Domain Name System
Security Extensions) went into effect.
* Tunnel
Cloudflare Tunnel is a service that acts as a reverse-proxy (hosted on
Cloudflare's servers) and allowed me to mask the private internet protocol (IP)
address of the server hosting my various websites and apps.
However, as I was moving away from Cloudflare, I was not able to find a suitable
replacement that was both inexpensive and simple. So, I simply went back to
hosting [[https://cleberg.net/blog/set-up-nginx-reverse-proxy/][my own reverse proxy with Nginx]]. With the recent additions of Unifi
hardware in my server/network rack, I am much more protected against spam and
malicious attacks at the network edge than I was before I switched to
Cloudflare.
* Access
Cloudflare Access, another app I used in combination with Cloudflare Tunnel,
provided an authentication screen that required you to enter valid credentials
before Cloudflare would forward you to the actual website or app (if the
website/app has their own authentication, you'd then have to authenticate a
second time).
I did not replace this service with anything since I only host a handful of
non-sensitive apps that don't require duplicate authentication.
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