What is DNS?
TL;DR
DNS (Domain Name System) is the internet's phone book: it turns a human-friendly name like example.com into the numeric address computers use to reach your server. 'Connecting to Cloudflare' mostly means pointing your domain's DNS at it.
What it is
You remember names, not phone numbers — your phone's contacts app does the lookup. DNS does the same for the web: type example.com, and DNS resolves it to your server's IP address. The settings live in DNS records (an A record points to an IP, CNAME to another name, MX to mail, TXT for verification), and your nameservers are the authoritative source for those records.
Why it matters
- It's how anyone reaches you. Wrong DNS = your site is unreachable, even if the server is fine.
- It's the Cloudflare on-ramp. Putting your site on Cloudflare means changing your domain's nameservers to Cloudflare's, so its network answers DNS and can sit in front of your site.
- It powers verification.
TXTrecords prove you own a domain for many services.
FAQ
What are nameservers?
The servers that hold the authoritative DNS records for your domain. Cloudflare gives you two to set at your registrar.
Will changing DNS take my site down?
Done correctly, no — you replicate your existing records first. Changes can take minutes to a few hours to propagate.
Where do I change DNS?
At your domain registrar (where you bought the domain). See Connect Cloudflare to MetaPilot.
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