Cloudflare SE Lab
Lab 1

Request flow, DNS behavior, proxying, and edge diagnostics

Lab 1 establishes the troubleshooting foundation: prove where the request goes, whether DNS resolves, whether Cloudflare is in the path, and what the edge sees.

Scenario

A customer wants to understand what changes when traffic is proxied through Cloudflare. They need to know whether DNS, Cloudflare proxying, TLS, routing, or edge logic is responsible for the behavior they are seeing.

Objective

Build a request-flow lab that shows how traffic reaches Cloudflare, how Cloudflare handles the request, and how diagnostic pages can prove what the edge sees. The goal is to separate DNS resolution, proxy status, routing ownership, response headers, and application behavior.

Outcomes

  • Confirmed the domain is managed through Cloudflare DNS.
  • Validated that the public hostname resolves and is reachable through Cloudflare.
  • Created utility pages for health, diagnostics, and headers.
  • Demonstrated how response headers such as server: cloudflare and cf-ray help prove Cloudflare handled the request.
  • Established a repeatable troubleshooting model for later labs.

Environment / Build

  • Domain: ybarra-cflab.com
  • Primary site: https://www.ybarra-cflab.com/
  • Health page: /health/
  • Diagnostic page: /diagnostic/
  • Headers page: /headers/
  • Validation tools: dig, curl, and browser testing

Demonstrable Content

dig ybarra-cflab.com SOA

dig www.ybarra-cflab.com

curl -I https://www.ybarra-cflab.com/

curl -I https://www.ybarra-cflab.com/health/

curl -I https://www.ybarra-cflab.com/diagnostic/

curl -I https://www.ybarra-cflab.com/headers/

What Was Completed

  • Validated the Cloudflare-managed DNS foundation for the lab domain.
  • Confirmed the canonical website hostname is reachable through Cloudflare.
  • Created beautified utility pages for health, diagnostics, and headers.
  • Created a clean way to explain request flow and edge validation.
  • Prepared the environment for redirect, Pages, Functions, and cache labs.

Lab 1 Technical Summary

Lab 1 established the foundation for Cloudflare request-flow troubleshooting. The lab validates that the domain is delegated into Cloudflare, that the website hostname resolves, and that HTTP requests are handled through Cloudflare rather than being treated as a direct-to-origin problem. The diagnostic pages provide a controlled way to inspect route behavior, headers, and operational status. This creates a baseline for identifying whether a future issue is caused by DNS, proxying, routing, TLS, Cloudflare rules, application logic, or cache behavior.

Lab 1 Customer-Facing Summary

This lab shows how to determine where a website request is going and what system is responsible for the response. Instead of guessing whether the problem is DNS, Cloudflare, or the application, we validate each layer with simple checks. That gives the customer a clearer troubleshooting path and helps avoid unnecessary changes when the real issue is DNS, routing, or configuration.