---
title: Protect your origin server · Cloudflare Fundamentals docs
description: Your origin server is a physical or virtual machine that is not owned by Cloudflare and hosts your application content (data, webpages, etc.).
lastUpdated: 2025-02-10T18:09:32.000Z
source_url:
  html: https://b37efaf9.preview.developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/security/protect-your-origin-server/index.md
  md: https://b37efaf9.preview.developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/security/protect-your-origin-server/
---

Your [origin server](https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/cdn/glossary/origin-server) is a physical or virtual machine that is not owned by Cloudflare and hosts your application content (data, webpages, etc.).

Receiving too many requests can be bad for your origin. These requests might increase latency for visitors, incur higher costs — particularly for cloud-based machines — and could knock your application offline.

## Secure origin connections

When you secure origin connections, it prevents attackers from discovering and overloading your origin server with requests.

* **DNS**:

  1. **Proxy records** (when possible): Set up [proxied (orange-clouded) DNS records](https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/proxy-status/) to hide your origin IP addresses and provide DDoS protection. As part of this, you should [allow Cloudflare IP addresses](https://developers.cloudflare.com/fundamentals/concepts/cloudflare-ip-addresses/) at your origin to prevent requests from being blocked.
  2. **Review DNS-only records**: Audit existing **DNS-only** records (`SPF`, `TXT`, and more) to make sure they do not contain origin IP information.
  3. **Evaluate mail infrastructure**: If possible, do not host a mail service on the same server as the web resource you want to protect, since emails sent to non-existent addresses get bounced back to the attacker and reveal the mail server IP.
  4. **Rotate origin IPs**: Once [onboarded](https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/zone-setups/full-setup/setup/#verify-changes), rotate your origin IPs, as DNS records are in the public domain. Historical records are kept and would contain IP addresses prior to joining Cloudflare.

### Application layer

### Transport Layer

### Network Layer

## Monitor origin health

For passive monitoring, [create notifications](https://developers.cloudflare.com/notifications/get-started/#create-a-notification) for **Origin Error Rate Alerts** to receive alerts when your origin returns 5xx codes above a configurable threshold and **Passive Origin Monitoring** to see when Cloudflare is unable to reach your origin for a few minutes.

For more active monitoring, set up [standalone health checks](https://developers.cloudflare.com/health-checks/) for your origin.

Note

If you have multiple servers and want to proactively prevent origin problems, [set up load balancing](https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/) as an add-on service.

### Zero Downtime Failover

If you have another *A* or *AAAA* record in your Cloudflare **DNS** or your Cloudflare **Load Balancer** provides another [endpoint](https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/understand-basics/load-balancing-components/) in the same pool, **Zero-Downtime Failover** automatically retries requests to your origin even before a Load Balancing decision is made.

Zero-downtime failover will trigger a single retry only if there is another healthy endpoint in the pool and a [521, 522, 523, 525 or 526 error code](https://developers.cloudflare.com/support/troubleshooting/http-status-codes/cloudflare-5xx-errors/#error-521-web-server-is-down) is occurring. No other error codes will trigger a zero-downtime failover operation.



## Reduce origin traffic

### Block traffic

For more details, refer to [Secure your website](https://developers.cloudflare.com/learning-paths/application-security/account-security/).

### Increase caching

The [cache](https://developers.cloudflare.com/cache/) stores data from your application (webpages, etc.) at Cloudflare data centers around the world, which reduces the number of requests sent to your origin server.

### Distribute traffic

To randomly distribute traffic across multiple servers, [set up multiple DNS records](https://developers.cloudflare.com/dns/manage-dns-records/how-to/round-robin-dns/).

For more fine-grained control over traffic distribution — including automatic failover, intelligent routing, and more — set up our [add-on load balancing service](https://developers.cloudflare.com/load-balancing/).

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To protect specific endpoints from being overwhelmed by traffic spikes, [set up a waiting room](https://developers.cloudflare.com/waiting-room/).
