The Best Way to Use Cloudflare with cPanel & WHM for Better Performance

Why Use Cloudflare with cPanel & WHM?

Cloudflare is a powerful CDN (Content Delivery Network) that improves website speed, security, and uptime. When properly configured with cPanel & WHM, Cloudflare can:

• Reduce server load by caching static content.
• Protect against DDoS attacks and malicious traffic.
• Improve global page load speeds with distributed caching.
• Enhance security with Web Application Firewall (WAF).

Step 1: Create and Configure a Cloudflare Account

1. Go to Cloudflare’s website and sign up.
2. Add your domain and allow Cloudflare to scan your DNS records.
3. Select a plan (Free, Pro, or Business depending on your needs).
4. Cloudflare will provide new nameservers. Update them in your domain registrar.

Step 2: Optimize Cloudflare Settings for cPanel Hosting

Enable Full Page Caching

• Go to Cloudflare’s dashboard and enable Caching → Full Page Cache.
• Set TTL (Time to Live) to reduce frequent requests to the origin server.

Enable Brotli Compression & Auto Minify

• Go to Speed → Optimization.
• Enable Brotli compression for faster delivery of HTML, CSS, and JS files.
• Enable Auto Minify for JavaScript, CSS, and HTML.

Activate Cloudflare Web Application Firewall (WAF)

• Enable WAF to protect against SQL injections and bot attacks.
• Use Cloudflare’s OWASP rule set for enhanced security.

Set Up DNS Proxy for Faster Resolution

• Ensure DNS records are set to Proxied (Orange Cloud) in Cloudflare.
• Disable DNS proxy for mail and FTP records to avoid connection issues.

Step 3: Configure Cloudflare with WHM for Server-Wide Optimization

1. Go to WHM and navigate to Networking Setup → Host Access Control.
2. Allow Cloudflare’s IP ranges to ensure proper traffic filtering.
3. Install mod_remoteip to preserve visitor IPs in Apache logs.

Step 4: Test and Monitor Performance

• Use GTmetrix and Google PageSpeed Insights to analyze improvements.
• Monitor real-time traffic in Cloudflare’s dashboard.
• Check UnderHost’s Monitoring for server performance insights.

Need Expert Help with Cloudflare Setup?

For a fully optimized Cloudflare and cPanel setup, check out UnderHost’s Managed Hosting. Need support? Contact @CustomerPanel for assistance.