Are you wondering whether a CDN will protect the website?

No more wonders! a service like Cloudflare is CDN that differents from other CDN as it filters the traffic and keeps unwanted traffic away from web hosts.

However, CDN serves only the content faster to the user.

Luckily, Cloudflare plugin integrates Cloudflare services with the cPanel server and allows the clients to manage the Cloudflare services via cPanel.

At Bobcares, we often get requests from our customers to install the Cloudflare cPanel plugin as part of our Server Management Services.

Today, let’s get into the details on how our Support Engineers fix this error.

How we install Cloudflare cPanel plugin

Cloudflare is a content delivery network that sits between a website’s visitor and the Cloudflare user’s hosting provider, acting as a reverse proxy for websites.

What are the benefits of using Cloudflare?

In fact, the primary aim is to secure the website. Thus it protects the websites from malicious traffic targeting network and application layers. Also, it maintains availability and performance.

Luckily, the Cloudflare plugin combines CloudFlare services with the cPanel server and enables CloudFlare services to be set up via cPanel. Here, let’s see how our Support Engineers install Cloudflare plugin in WHM.

Initially, the customers should have a HOST KEY from Cloudflare before continue to download the Cloudflare plugin.

1. Then, we login to the server via SSH as a root user and navigate to the cPanel directory.

cd /usr/local/cpanel

2. After that, we download the CloudFlare package to the server and extract it.

curl -k -L https://github.com/cloudflare/CloudFlare-CPanel/tarball/master > cloudflare.tar.gz

tar -zxvf cloudflare.tar.gz

3. This command extracts the file contents to a specific folder with a UNIQUE Id. For example,

cloudflare-CloudFlare-CPanel-w40eeb3

Here, the unique ID is w40eeb3.

4. Next, we navigate to Cloudflare directory

cd cloudflare-CloudFlare-CPanel-UNIQUE_ID/cloudflare

We replace the unique ID with the customer UNIQUE Id that received from the above steps. Also, we install the plugin with the following format.

./install_cf API_HOST_KEY mod_cf "Your Company Name" 

Also. we replace the following details.

1. API_HOST_KEY:- Received from the Cloudflare panel.
2. Your Company Name:- Hostname of the server.
3. mod_cf:- It is optional, the installer will try to install mod_cloudflare.

That’s it! We have completed the installation of the cPanel plugin.

Finally, users can see a CloudFlare icon in the cPanel interface after installing Cloudflare on the server. The icon looks likes,

Cloudflare cPanel plugin installation – How we fixed it

At Bobcares, where we have more than a decade of expertise in managing servers, we see that many of our clients face problems with Cloudflare servers

Now, let’s see the major reasons for this Cloudflare error and how our Support Engineers fix this error.

Invalid API_HOST_KEY

Recently, one of our customers had a problem while installing the Cloudflare cPanel plugin on the server. He received an error like ERROR: Could not find latest version. Please double check your HOST_KEY.

On checking our Support Engineers found that the customer had used an incorrect HOST_KEY. So, we installed the plugin with the right HOST_KEY copied from the Cloudflare account.

For that, we log into the Cloudflare account and navigated to My Settings>>Global API Key.

Then, we clicked on the View API Key button and copied the API_HOST_KEY from the Cloudflare account for the further installation procedure.

This is how we solved the error.

Activate Cloudflare in the cPanel interface

Often, many customers have complained that the Cloudflare is not working after installing the Cloudflare on the server. This happens when the customer may forget to enable the Cloudflare in the cPanel.

After the installation of CloudFlare, users have to create a Cloudflare account first for using this plugin.  Then, sign in to Cloudflare from the cPanel interface. Also, login into Cloudflare and configure Cloudflare as CNAME setup or full DNS setup.

[Need assistance to fix Cloudflare​ errors? We’ll help you.]

Conclusion

In short, Cloudflare is CDN that filters the traffic and keeps unwanted traffic away from web hosts. Also, the Cloudflare cPanel plugin is also available through the cPanel to handle the Cloudflare account. Today, we saw how our Support Engineers assisted our customers to solve the error.