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Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

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Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#31

Post by lexicality »

djsumdog wrote: post #17

I really had a strong dislike for Cloudflare after they banned certain customers for political reasons[1]. The CEO mentioned how maybe it wasn't the right thing to do .. and then they did it again. There aren't really any self-hosted solutions for DDoS protection like Cloudflare since it requires things happening in the network layer. Implementing a solution would require access to monitor and reshape the local netwo…

While there are a lot of reasons not to trust cloudflare, the fact that they stopped hosting nazis and pedophiles doesn't seem like a good one to open with imo

Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#32

Post by iudqnolq »

dana321 wrote: post #20

Cloudflare. A great solution if you want nobody to be able to easily access your website.

OP here. My website wasn't up when this happened because of some yak shaving, but when it is I disable DDOS protection. I was only using Cloudflare for domain registration and DNS.

I don't think I have ethical issues with DDOS protection in general, but as someone who browses using Firefox on Linux with tracking blocking I know how annoying it can get. If I don't need it why bother? Plus I generally like to minimize opaque layers in my "stack".

Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#33

Post by oefrha »

Unrelated issue but sometimes Cloudflare docs/communications are not in sync with their actual system which is immensely frustrating. I was bitten a few times.

For instance, a while back I forgot to renew one of my side project domains so it briefly expired for maybe a day or two. Got this email from Cloudflare saying

> Your DNS records will be completely removed from our system in 7 days.

> ...

> Once you have completed this change, click the “Recheck Nameservers” button in your Cloudflare dashboard to ensure your domain stays active on Cloudflare.

I promptly renewed, except there's no "Recheck Nameservers" button anywhere, and the dashboard still read "Moved" for maybe a day. Eventually the problem was just gone, but the communication worried me that entire time.

(I do appreciate Cloudflare's service, though.)

Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#35

Post by throwawaydns101 »

nathancahill wrote: post #18
throwawaydns101 wrote: post #10

DNS has become frighteningly unreliable. Here are previous stories that show how it is possible to lose access to your domain for no fault of yours: (1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21700139 - Sinkholed (2) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19322966 - I lost my domain and everything that goes with it No different than this story where the author's DNS records were deleted because of so called "anomaly". He…

Odd comment to make a throwaway for, not very controversial (unless you work for Cloudflare?)

I don't work for Cloudflare but I work for another large company that also manages domain names and DNS records. I don't want to risk the possibility that my comment could be interpreted by my employer as conflict the interest.

Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#36

Post by Legogris »

throwawaydns101 wrote: post #10

DNS has become frighteningly unreliable. Here are previous stories that show how it is possible to lose access to your domain for no fault of yours: (1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21700139 - Sinkholed (2) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19322966 - I lost my domain and everything that goes with it No different than this story where the author's DNS records were deleted because of so called "anomaly". He…

I looked into self-hosting DNS and it doesn't seem like that big of a deal as long as you can ensure uptime to be honest. If you set up the two first on different hosts and possibly have #3/4 being cloud providers I think you're pretty good.

Does anyone here have experience with running their own DNS servers for their domains?

Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#38

Post by gist »

> Does anyone know what might have caused Cloudflare to delete my domain? Any ideas for how I could transfer my domain away from Cloudflare sooner?

I don't get the point of 'shoot first ask questions later' type approach. Obviously it would pay to get some kind of affirmative reply from Cloudflare prior to a post which everyone here with incomplete information speculates and wastes time on (like I am doing).

Also Cloudflare did not 'delete my (the) domain. It deleted the dns records. There is a difference and no I am not being pedantic either. How would 'the internet' know why this was done there could be any number of good or bad reasons.

Lastly the domain is not expired and as such the registrar is required (per ICANN) to supply an auth code so someone can transfer out. Or to allow the customer to change the primary and secondary dns to another dns provider. There is zero (legitimately) that allows cloudflare as either a dns provider or a registrar to lock the domain up pretty much (other than for a legal court order) just for some reason they might decide to do that.

Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#39

Post by crooked-v »

judge2020 wrote: post #28

Can't think of a reason this domain was touched (I don't work for CF) but I'd recommend reading the threads related to this search: https://community.cloudflare.com/search?q=127.0.0.1%20audit Every related incident seems to be due to either nameservers temporarily/incidentally chanced away from CF (and CF's service not re-checking it perhaps) or the registration billing failing (which doesn't look to be the case sinc…

> Re-adding the domain will instantly allow you to view the registration info

"Your domain registration configuration depends on your DNS zone configuration" is a very strange way to do things.

Re: Cloudflare silently deleted my DNS records

#40

Post by isclever »

My takeaway:

1. Setup up monitoring on your critical domains. UptimeRobot and Hetrixtools are good starters with generous free tier. You should know when your website/email/dns isn't working.

2. Don't tie your domain registration with your DNS provider. You lose everything if something goes wrong with your account.

3. Be able to jump ship easily, have backups of your zone, already know where you will transfer to.

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