Changing your name servers to Cloudflare routes traffic through Cloudflare for any orange-clouded DNS records in the Cloudflare DNS app. Your origin web server receives traffic from Cloudflare IP addresses due to Cloudflare’s reverse proxy.
Blocking or rate limiting Cloudflare connections prevents visitor traffic from reaching your website.
To avoid blocking Cloudflare IPs unintentionally check that:
- Your origin web server iptables are set to trust Cloudflare IPs.
- Bad Behavior or mod_security is up to date.
- Your htaccess file allowlist Cloudflare IPs.
- Any security plugins, such as WordPress security plugins, allowlist Cloudflare IPs.
For Cloudflare to send visitor requests to your origin web server, allowlist Cloudflare IP addresses at your origin web server. Contact your hosting provider or website administrator if you have questions.