Turn off Cloudflare Temporarily for Maintenance or Development

Cloudflare places a proxy between the server and your visitors. This is not always suitable when using a testing tool or during development. Follow this article to learn two ways to turn off Cloudflare.

Turn off Cloudflare entirely

Use this option when you need traffic routed directly to the server. The Cloudflare proxy is not used.

1. Log in to cPanel.
   If you do not know how to log in to your cPanel account, please see this article.
2. In the SOFTWARE section of the cPanel home screen, click Cloudflare. The plugin loads the Cloudflare home screen.
3. Click the Domains button in the toolbar at the top of the page.
4. The plugin displays the setting for the primary domain. To choose a different domain, use the list box located at the left of the toolbar.
5. Locate the CNAME record for your www domain:

   

6. The Use Cloudflare column value should be set to On, click it to turn Cloudflare off.
   

   It can take a few minutes for the DNS changes to propagate through the Cloudflare network.
7. When direct access to the server is no longer required, click the setting to turn Cloudflare back on.

Turn on Development Mode

Use this option when making changes to your site. Traffic to your server is routed through the Cloudflare proxy but caching is turned off and you can see your changes immediately.

1. Log in to cPanel.
   If you do not know how to log in to your cPanel account, please see this article.
2. In the SOFTWARE section of the cPanel home screen, click Cloudflare. The plugin loads the Cloudflare home screen.
3. Click the Settings button in the toolbar at the top of the page.
4. Locate the Development Mode setting and click it to turn Development Mode on.

   

   Development Mode turn off automatically after 3 hours. If you are making changes that take longer than 3 hours you will need to turn it on again.