What is Cloudflare Gateway? Unless you’re a web developer, likely, you don’t. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care about what it is and how it works. Cloudflare Gateway is a service that sits in front of your website and handles all the requests from browsers.
It’s like a firewall for your website. And while it may not be something you need to worry about right now, it’s important to understand what it is and how it can help protect your website.
SSE Guide: What is Cloudflare Gateway?
Cloudflare Gateway is a caching service for your website. It sits in front of your website and intercepts all the HTTP requests from browsers to your website. Cloudflare then serves these requests from its 130+ data centres around the world.
This way, Cloudflare can decrease the load time of your website by serving static resources (like images, CSS, and JavaScript) from its data centers instead of sending requests to your server.
In addition to speeding up page load times, Cloudflare also protects your website by blocking malicious bots and attacks. It’s free, easy to set up, and can be added to any website in just a few clicks.
How Does Cloudflare Gateway Work?
Cloudflare sits in front of your website and intercepts all the HTTP requests from browsers. Scroll down to see how Cloudflare Gateway works:
1. A browser sends a request to www.example.com. Cloudflare sees the request and recognizes that it’s not its IP address or hostname ( www.cloudflare.com )
2. Cloudflare looks up where the IP address for www.example.com does register
3. Cloudflare checks if the request is using HTTPS/SSL
4. If all checks out, Cloudflare sends the request to the IP address for www.example.com
5. The server running at that IP address replies with the response back to Cloudflare 6. Cloudflare then sends the response back to the browser that initiated the request
This process happens quickly and seamlessly without users even noticing it happened!
Does My Website Need It?
While you might think you don’t need an extra layer of protection for your website, you might be surprised at how many attacks happen every day.
Particularly if you have a popular website or a website that handles user-generated content, even if you only receive a few requests per day, you can get hit by an attack. And while it might not affect many users, the attack can leave your website slow and unusable for everyone else.
How Do I Get Cloudflare Gateway?
Cloudflare is incredibly easy to configure and deploy. If you have a domain registered at Dreamhost, you’ll need to set up Cloudflare at the domain registrar first.
1. Access your domain registrar’s website (you can find out how from the link below)
2. Create an account with the registrar and verify it
3. Once you’re logged into your account, create an A record for your domain that points it to one of Cloudflare’s IP addresses (below)
4. Click “Enable” on the Cloudflare page in the domain registrar’s dashboard
5. On the next page, fill in your email address and password for Cloudflare customer accounts
6. You’ll be prompted to create a password for your customer account, so do that
7. Wait a few minutes while Cloudflare provisions its services to your website, and then you’re done!
You’ll be able to monitor Cloudflare’s progress on your domain registrar’s dashboard or via email confirmations from Cloudflare itself.
Your website should now load much faster due to static content being served from Cloudflare’s data centers worldwide!