Help with Changing NameServers
Hello all! I'm doing volunteer work for an organization and I need help changing their name servers. I have been following the "how to" by Cloudflare, but get stuck on step 3 which is "Update your nameservers". This org uses the free plan. Can I change the nameservers, or is this a feature only for business plan and above? Because I found the spot I'm supposed to be in, but there is no option to "Replace with Cloudflare’s nameservers."
78 Replies
Is the domain name registered elsewhere? You'll need to login to the registrar where the domain name you added is registered, and there you'll have the ability to update the nameservers to the ones in your screenshot.
If you'd like to share the registrar (or the domain), I can give you more detailed instructions on how to do it for the specific registrar.
The domain name was registered through Cloudflare as far as I know. But the domain is ecwesleyan.com
Ah perfect!
In that case, you don't have to do anything, as the nameservers are automatically configured by Cloudflare when you register the domain.
Everything is already configured correctly, you can begin using Cloudflare
Oh that's good news! I'm assigning this domain to a website I've created, and the last step of the transfer process is to change the nameservers. Can I skip this step then?
Correct, the nameservers from your first screenshot which you need to apply are already applied to that domain, so no further action is needed regarding nameservers, you're all set!
Whether you want to use Cloudflare Pages for your website or Cloudflare as a CDN/DNS to point to your new website, you can start doing that immediately 🙂
Thank you so much for your help!
No worries, happy to help 😄
Just to clarify: the nameservers from my first picture are the ones applied to my domain. But they need to match the ones provided by my website domain (and they currently don't). Is that okay?
Are you using another platform (not Cloudflare) for your new website which is asking you to change your nameservers to something else?
Yes that is correct
Ah okay, thanks for clarifying.
Cloudflare Registrar does not support changing the nameservers to point elsewhere - domains registered at Cloudflare must use Cloudflare nameservers so the Cloudflare suite of products work correctly for that domain.
If you need to change the nameservers to use your new website platform, then you will need to transfer the domain OUT of Cloudflare to a new domain registrar.
Do you mind sharing the platform, as some services will allow you to keep the nameservers pointed to Cloudflare and still use them - I can try and help you set that up.
Oh I understand. No worries, I'm using WIX
Perfect, you can still make this work without changing your nameservers.
If you follow the Wix guide here, you can connect your domain to Wix using the
Pointing method, which doesn't require you to update your nameservers:
https://support.wix.com/en/article/connecting-a-domain-to-wix-using-the-pointing-methodConnecting a Domain to Wix Using the Pointing Method | Help Center ...
Connect your domain to Wix via the pointing method to keep your DNS hosted outside of Wix.In most cases we do not recommend pointing because we're unable to ass
You also have the option of actually transferring the domain from Cloudflare to Wix, but the first method is better in my opinion 😄
Ah great!! Thank you so much for looking all that up, I appreciate you
Anytime!
Hello everyone 👋 ,
Thanks for sharing all the information. Can I ask the similar question here, please?
I'm building a website for non-profit as well. We purchased a domain name in Cloudflare and deplyed our web app on Vercel. Can I make this "pointing" thing in my case?
Hey, ideally please start your own thread next time 🙏
However yes, you should be able to follow this tutorial to add/verify your domain with Vercel, it just involves adding some DNS records within Cloudflare to point to Vercel.
https://vercel.com/docs/projects/domains/add-a-domain
Vercel Documentation
Adding & Configuring a Custom Domain
Learn how to add a custom domain to your Vercel project, verify it, and correctly set the DNS or Nameserver values.
Ok)
Thanks for your quick response. Let me research it! 🙏
No worries 🙂 Happy to help!
It seems that I've done everything correctly.
1. I took the A record from Vercel (my-website.com)
2. I took the CNAME (www.my-website.com)
3. Inserted them to my CF DNS records
CF shows that my domain name is not active...
What do you mean CF shows that your domain name is not active? Are you getting an error message, or is the domain just not resolving when you try to access it?
If you have the Proxied (Orange Cloud) mode on at Cloudflare, you should turn that off for all the Vercel related records.
Under the Overview tab, I can see the message that "my domain name is not active. Update nameservers..." Also, the domain isn't resolving.
* I turned that off a few hours ago.
Did you purchase the domain at Cloudflare Registrar, or did you purchase the domain elsewhere and added it to your Cloudflare account?
If it’s the latter, you’ll need to make sure the nameservers for the domain are correctly updated to point to your Cloudflare Nameservers (the one that page displays)
I bought it from Cloudflare.
Do you mind sharing the domain and/or provide a screenshot of the error you’re seeing on Cloudflare?
If you bought the domain from Cloudflare, you shouldn’t see an error like that.
Sure. I will share.
toastmastersturkiye.org
I experimented with deleting and recovering some DNS records. Probably, I did something wrong...
Just to confirm, on your Cloudflare account (on that page), what Nameservers are Cloudflare asking you to set?
Are they
addilyn.ns.cloudflare.com & jakub.ns.cloudflare.com
Or are your Cloudflare nameservers different to the above?Let me check quickly.
Sure, at first glance it looks like that domain was registered on a different Cloudflare account to the one you're currently logged in to?
It suggests me to assign another Nameservers.
Yup, that means that this domain was registered on a different Cloudflare account to the one you're currently logged in to.
You need to login to the Cloudflare account that actually bought the domain, and change the DNS records on that account.
If someone else registered the domain, please ask them to invite you to their Cloudflare account
Oh, I've changed my email address. Can it be the problem?
It doesn't look like to me it necessarily belongs to another account since even the ones assigned to the domain are refusing queries. There's one quick way to check: Look under Domain Registration -> Manage Domains. Do you see it there?
Magic Link: https://dash.cloudflare.com/?to=/:account/domains
I'm receiving a quick message "you don't have a permission" and it returns to the same page.
hmm, you mean the dashboard overview? Are you not Super Admin in that account?
I mean, I'm seeing that message after clicking the magic link. I think I'm a super admin. How can we check it?
If you navigate normally within the dashboard, select an account (if you are in more the one), do you see Domain Registration on the left hand side?
Yes, I can see Manage, Transfer, Register domains.
and if you click on Manage Domains, do you see any?
Yes, I can see my domain name inside a tiny table.
It has five columns: domain, status, auto-renew, expires, and manage.
If you see it under Manage Domains, its in that account. If you click Websites using that same left hand menu, you see the registered domain, showing Pending?
Yes. I can see "Pending Nameservers Update" and the domain.
Then it seems you're going to need to make a Registrar ticket sadly, somehow it's broken. Maybe you deleted the domain and readded it? Maybe you created it during the outage of Nov 2-4? Not Sure exactly what, but your cf registered domain nameservers are misaligned, and only support can fix that
Just as a last sanity check: you have no other cf accounts or anything like that right? Changing the email of an account wouldn't cause this
I have another CF account. This is my own account and not the org's.
and you're not trying to add that domain to your orgs account, right? you registered the domain in your own account, and shouldn't have had to manually add it or anything as a new website (other then registering it via the domain registration menu), it should have just popped up under Websites
I created a ticket 11 days ago but still waiting...
A Registrar Ticket? If it was in any other category then Registrar/Account/Billing it would have been autoclosed on free
I created a new account on CF for the org and purchased it from there.
Ok, and you can see on the org account that it's under Manage Domains, and under Websites but as Pending? Just sanity checking lol, if it was some silly account confusing issue it would be a simple fix
Yeah, got it)
What's the Registrar Ticket #?
Let me check one sec.
#3014236
Before connecting it to Vercel, I connected my CF account with Dashnex. I'm not sure if it could be an issue...
Also they asked me for credentials of the CF account since it didn't work.
hmm yea sounds like they could have broken it by readding it. I wouldn't do that in the future if you can help it, also enable 2fa ;p
I'll see if I can't escalate that ticket, haven't got anything but the automated reply on it in 11 days?
Will add 2fa)
After submitting the ticket, next day, I received a message from the Cloudflare Support Team (Bot)😅
Frankly, we need to make this domain name accessible until November 23 big event...
@AlphaCentauri and @Chaika thanks a lot for your support!
No worries, though @Chaika did most of the heavy lifting here 😂
Hopefully it gets solved for you soon 🤞
Hello! This ticket ended up being triaged to the DNS category since it's not clear from the data in the ticket how this is a registrar issue - since DNS support isn't aactually supposed to be available on the Free plan it got deprioritised and nobody had a spare moment to check it. Sorry about the trouble there, are you able to update the ticket to clarify the nameserver issue with Registrar so that the Registrar team can have a look? Thanks!
Hello,
Thanks for the clarification!
What should I write in the ticket?
In topic I'm choosing CF Registrar. What should I chose in the area section?
In my old ticket, I used New registration
The category you picked was fine, the Support Engineer doing triaging didn't see why it was related to Registrar and moved it.
You can reply to the existing ticket which might be easier, no need to worry about creating a new one - I can reroute it to Registrar once it's updated.
What should I write in the ticket?The information here that Chaika said needs a ticket, about nameserver updates: https://discord.com/channels/595317990191398933/1174485226198663228/1174824802473746553 Cloudflare Registrar domains shouldn't need nameserver updates so if that's the case then it's a bug and the Registrar support team can look into it for you.
I see that I replied once, 1 day ago.
I can do it again)
You asked for an update, it still reads like a DNS onboarding ticket and not a Registrar issue. It would help if you mentioned the specific details and what we need to fix.
Again I am sorry for all this trouble here - I just would like to have a solid case to escalate on to the Registrar team so having all the info in the ticket helps with that
I could reply to the ticket with this request but it's out of hours for me right now, I just took a peek because Chaika mentioned the ticket in a private channel
I understand. I'm trying to create that message...
Thank you 🙏
Could you please help me to formulate it correctly? I have no idea...
I have a problem with the domain name that I purchased from CF in October. I tried to use it with Dashnex platform. It didn't work. Then, Dahsnex's team asked me for the CF account's credentials and probably readded it. Now, it seems my domain name is broken. The another assumption is it can happen during the outage of Nov 2-4. I'm not sure. The support team from Discord said that my cf registered domain nameservers are misaligned, and only you can help me.
Is it ok?
@Shami You probably want to be more specific / concise and write something along these lines:
Hello, It looks like there's a bug with how my my domain which has been registered with Cloudflare Registrar directly has been configured. The default nameservers are not set to the CF assigned nameservers on my account, meaning the domain isn't resolving and cannot be used at all in any capacity - if this bug could be rectified, that'd be greatly appreciated.That way they can look in the right places and know what's going on.
Thanks a lot. It's almost 2am in my place. 😅
11pm here! Time flies, thanks for bearing with my night-time ramblings
I copied myself onto the ticket so I'll take a look tomorrow morning and get it to the right people
CF better be paying you OT for being around at 11pm 😂
I wish 😂 I just care too much about the community 😅
Checked it with grammarly and sent) Thanks a lot again!
I can see my colleague has escalated this ticket last night and we're just waiting on action from the registrar operations team
Hey everyone,
My domain is up!
I'm so grateful for your help. It was really lightning⚡ Thanks all of your team!🙏 🙏 🙏
Hooray! Glad to hear you got it sorted