Per-hostname

When you enable Authenticated Origin Pulls per hostname, all proxied traffic to the specified hostname is authenticated at the origin web server. You can use client certificates from your Private PKI to authenticate connections from Cloudflare.

Before you begin

Warning

It is not possible to set up per-hostname authenticated origin pulls with the Cloudflare certificate.

Refer to the steps below for an example of how to generate a custom certificate using OpenSSL. The CA root certificate that you use to issue the custom certificate should be the same CA that you will upload to your origin.

OpenSSL example

1. Run the following command to generate a 4096-bit RSA private key, using AES-256 encryption. Enter a passphrase when prompted.

openssl genrsa -aes256 -out rootca.key 4096

2. Create the CA root certificate. When prompted, fill in the information to be included in the certificate. For the Common Name field, use the domain name as value, not the hostname.

openssl req -x509 -new -nodes -key rootca.key -sha256 -days 1826 -out rootca.crt

3. Create a Certificate Signing Request (CSR). When prompted, fill in the information to be included in the request. For the Common Name field, use the hostname as value.

openssl req -new -nodes -out cert.csr -newkey rsa:4096 -keyout cert.key

4. Sign the certificate using the rootca.key and rootca.crt created in previous steps.

openssl x509 -req -in cert.csr -CA rootca.crt -CAkey rootca.key -CAcreateserial -out cert.crt -days 730 -sha256 -extfile ./cert.v3.ext

5. Make sure the certificate extensions file cert.v3.ext specifies the following:

basicConstraints=CA:FALSE

1. Upload custom certificate

Use the /origin_tls_client_auth/hostnames/certificates endpoint to upload your custom certificate.

Note

You must upload a leaf certificate. If you upload a root CA instead, the API will return a missing leaf certificate error.

MYCERT="$(cat cert.crt|perl -pe 's/\r?\n/\\n/'|sed -e 's/..$//')"
MYKEY="$(cat cert.key|perl -pe 's/\r?\n/\\n/'|sed -e's/..$//')"

request_body=$(< <(cat <<EOF
{
"certificate": "$MYCERT",
"private_key": "$MYKEY",
"bundle_method":"ubiquitous"
}
EOF
))

# Push the certificate

curl --silent \
"https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/$ZONEID/origin_tls_client_auth/hostnames/certificates" \
--header "Content-Type: application/json" \
--header "X-Auth-Email: $MYAUTHEMAIL" \
--header "X-Auth-Key: $MYAUTHKEY" \
--data "$request_body"

In the API response, save the certificate id since it will be required in step 4.

2. Configure origin to accept client certificates

With the certificate installed, set up your origin web server to accept client certificates.

Check the examples below for Apache and NGINX or refer to your origin web server documentation - e.g. HAProxy ↗, Traefik ↗, Caddy ↗.

Apache example

SSLVerifyDepth 1
SSLCACertificateFile /path/to/origin-pull-ca.pem

For this example, you would have saved your certificate to /path/to/origin-pull-ca.pem.

NGINX example

ssl_verify_client optional;
ssl_client_certificate /etc/nginx/certs/cloudflare.crt;

For this example, you would have saved your certificate to /etc/nginx/certs/cloudflare.crt.

At this point, you may also want to enable logging on your origin so that you can verify the configuration is working.

3. Enable Authenticated Origin Pulls (globally)

Then, enable the Authenticated Origin Pulls feature as an option for your Cloudflare zone.

This step sets the TLS Client Auth to require Cloudflare to use a client certificate when connecting to your origin server.

Dashboard

To enable Authenticated Origin Pulls in the dashboard:

1. Log in to your Cloudflare account ↗ and go to a specific domain.
2. Go to SSL/TLS > Origin Server.
3. For Authenticated Origin Pulls, switch the toggle to On.

Warning

Note that this step means Authenticated Origin Pulls will be available, but you still have to go through the following steps to complete the configuration.

API

To enable or disable Authenticated Origin Pulls with the API, send a PATCH request with tls_client_auth as the setting name in the URI path, and the value parameter set to your desired setting ("on" or "off").

Warning

Note that this step means Authenticated Origin Pulls will be available, but you still have to go through the following steps to complete the configuration.

4. Enable Authenticated Origin Pulls for the hostname

Use the Cloudflare API to send a PUT request to enable Authenticated Origin Pulls for specific hostnames.

If you had set up logging on your origin during step 2, test and confirm that Authenticated Origin Pulls is working.

5. Enforce validation check on your origin

Once you can confirm everything is working as expected for your specific origin setup, configure your origin to enforce the authentication.

Apache example

SSLVerifyClient require

NGINX example

ssl_verify_client on;

After completing the process, you can use curl to send requests directly to your origin IPs, verifying that the requests fail due to certificate validation being enforced.

6. (Optional) Set up alerts for hostname-level Authenticated Origin Pulls certificates

You can configure alerts to receive notifications before your AOP certificates expire.

Hostname-level Authenticated Origin Pulls Certificate Expiration Alert

Who is it for?

Customers that upload their own certificate to use with hostname-level Authenticated Origin Pull (AOP) to secure connections from Cloudflare to their origin server. AOP certificate expiration notifications are sent 30 days and 14 days before the certificate expiry.

Other options / filters

None.

Included with

Authenticated Origin Pull.

What should you do if you receive one?

Upload a renewed certificate to use for hostname-level AOP.

Refer to Cloudflare Notifications for more information on how to set up an alert.