#Cloudflare
A Report Form for a Static Site with No Backend
A calculator site made entirely of static files has no server to handle forms, but users still need a way to report mistakes in the formulas. This article covers the one approach I chose—a single worker file that accepts POST requests on one route, verifies Turnstile on the server using the real client IP, accepts images pasted from the clipboard, and sends email from the network edge—along with three traps that cost me an entire night.
Registrar and Billing NS Mismatch: Audit All Three Sides First
A debugging log for "Wrong response from the server" when changing nameservers in a billing system, which failed only for domains with leftover glue IP data, followed by a three-way audit of the registrar, billing system, and actual DNS zones before I felt confident changing anything.
One Tunnel Is the Only Way In—and a Single Point of Failure
The machine sits behind NAT with no ports open to the internet. Every way in runs through one cloudflared tunnel — web, SSH, and remote desktop. This article covers the four ingress routes I set up, how to read the signs when it goes down, and the trap that keeps the tunnel from starting at boot.
Static on DirectAdmin: GET Returns 404 but HEAD Returns 200
I uploaded a static site to public_html and could not open it. Small files worked, large files returned 404, but HEAD returned 200 for every file. The cause was Laravel's .htaccess at the docroot, funneling everything into the front controller. This article covers the diagnosis and three ways out.
Every File Is Backed Up, but I Still Can't Rebuild the Server
The database dump is complete, the code tar is complete, and all the secrets are there, but put them on a blank machine and the site will not come up, because the things that actually make the server work were never in the backup files. This article lists what disappears with the machine and the recovery sequence I wrote for my future self.
Backups Succeeded Nightly, but Offsite Uploads Failed for 3 Weeks
cron ran every night, local files were complete every day, and the log said done, but offsite storage had not changed for 3 weeks. The first 8 nights of backups were already gone for good because local rotation had deleted them first. This article examines the two gaps that let the failure stay silent for so long.
Screenshot Multiple Domains Directly from Origin, Bypassing Cloudflare
Need screenshots of dozens of domains for inspection, or want to confirm that the origin server (not the CDN cache) renders correctly — but Chrome's screenshot flag has been broken since version 132, and AV reverts hosts edits? This article uses Playwright to override DNS at the process level, solving both problems.
Auditing a Deployed Laravel Site — 3 Layers in Priority Order
After deploying Laravel to production, check security in 3 layers — probe externally for exposed endpoints, check files/permissions on the server, then grep for vulnerabilities in the code. This article provides commands and P0-P2 priorities for deciding what to fix first.
Mail Stopped After Moving to Cloudflare — Proxied Mail Records
After adding a domain to Cloudflare and pointing DNS at the host, incoming mail suddenly stops — the most common cause I see is leaving mail/smtp/pop records proxied (orange cloud), even though Cloudflare's proxy only handles HTTP/S. This article covers which records must be grey + token/SSL pitfalls.
LAN Access for a Team of 7 Without Open Ports: Cloudflare Zero Trust
A team of 7 needs RDP access to machines on the LAN without opening any ports to the internet — the Cloudflare Zero Trust architecture (WARP + cloudflared), with 3 lessons from implementation: a forgotten IdP setup, Gateway defaults that allow everything, and the default-deny rule people forget most often
AdSense Says ads.txt Is Missing: Tracing the Logs Layer by Layer
The AdSense Sites page reports ads.txt as "Not found" even though the file exists and is correct — a forensic investigation using curl + access logs to prove, layer by layer, whether Googlebot visited and what it received. Case closed: nothing was blocking it; Google's own status was stale.