CloudFlare one of the widely used Content Delivery Network (CDN) and WFA (Website Firewall Application) provider worldwide. The Cloudflare is popular for it’s a free CDN plan that not only let you redirect traffic though their High Performance servers deployed almost all parts of the world, but it also lets you secure your website from DDoS, Hackers, SQL Injections and filter bad-boys. The Cloudflare also offers free shared SSL Certificates, Page Rules and additional services under their premium plans.
It is one of the useful and free tool available for everyone with a domain name and an email address, but in other hand Cloudflare is also being used by the bad-guys to marks their real identity since using the Cloudflare you can hide the real IP address of your actual server provider which means it is almost impossible to trace the hosting provider of a website using Cloudflare. Now the million dollar question, is it possible to trace the real or the actual hosting provider of a website using Cloudflare?
In the normal circumstances, we can find the name servers of a website by looking it’s WHOIS records, but in case of website hosted behind the Cloudflare CDN would be using the Name Servers (DNS) and the IP address of the Cloudflare servers which may be used by the millions of the websites.
Now, how to find the IP address and the real hosting provider of a website hosted behind cloudflare or using name servers of the Cloudflare?
There are two methods to find the real IP address of a website using Cloudflare:
- By looking at DNS records using the DNS Lookup tools
- With the help of crimeflare.com/cfs.html
Tracing Real IP using DNS lookup tools
DNS (Domain Name Servers) are the most crucial records for any website that routes the website and the most important of DNS records, is it is available to the public, but you need special tools to look the DNS records.
There are several types of DNS records maybe used a website to handle and route it’s services, such as:
- A records: Locates the server where the resources are hosted
- (Mail Exchange) MX Records: Helpful in accepting/identifying incoming emails
- (Sender Policy Framework) SPF Records: Used to identity the email/mail servers
Sample of MX DNS Lookup for Google.com
You can use the SuperTool by the MaxToolBox.com to trace the IP addresses and DNS records of a website. Once you get the IP addresses for the various DNS records you can simply Google the IP address for the IP address owner.
Tracing Real IP using crimeflare.com
While looking for the real hosting provider for one of the popular blogging websites I came across to one of the very interesting website which helps to find the real IP address and the hosting provider of a website hosted behind Cloudflare.
To find the real hosting provider of a website using cloudlfare with the help of crimeflare.com:
- Go to : http://www.crimeflare.cc:82/cfs.html
- Scroll to the bottom and Enter the domain
In most of the cases it will give the direct IP address of the hosting provider, but if in case it is not working you can still use the first method to trace the real hosting provider of a website using Cloudflare Name servers.
Please let us know if it worked for your
