cf

cf

cf is a command line tool that allows you to view and manipulate DNS records stored in your Cloudflare account.

Interactive mode

If you launch the cf tool without command line arguments, it will run in interactive mode. In interactive mode, you will be shown a cf> prompt, where you can type in commands. For example, type help:

cf> help
Primary commands:
    list    List all DNS records
    ip4     Add or modify an IPv4 Address (type A) record
    ip6     Add or modify an IPv6 Address (type AAAA) record
    cname   Add or modify a CNAME record
    txt     Add or modify a text (type TXT) record
    add     Add a DNS record
    delete  Delete DNS record(s)
    zone    Set active zone
    quit    Quit the application

To obtain further help on a specific command, type help <cmd>. For example:

cf> help ip4
Usage: ip4 <name> <address>
Description:
   Add or modify an IPv4 address (type A) DNS record in the currently active
   zone.

Shortcut: ip

The following example updates the address record for foo.example.com so that it points to 10.0.0.1:

cf> ip4 foo.example.com 10.0.0.1
DNS record updated.

Some commands require Cloudflare credentials, which you will be prompted for when you issue the command. All future commands you enter during the same interactive session will rely on these credentials, so you only need to enter them once. If you prefer to provide the credentials through environment variables, that is also possible. See the next section for details.

Non-interactive mode

You can also use the tool in non-interactive mode by passing all command requests directly on the command line. For example, type cf help from the shell:

$ cf help
Primary commands:
    list    List all DNS records
    ip4     Add or modify an IPv4 Address (type A) record
    ip6     Add or modify an IPv6 Address (type AAAA) record
    cname   Add or modify a CNAME record
    txt     Add or modify a text (type TXT) record
    add     Add a DNS record
    delete  Delete DNS record(s)
    zone    Set active zone
    quit    Quit the application

Since cloudflare credentials cannot be requested in non-interactive mode, you will need to provide them through the following environment variables:

On Mac and Linux, this can be done in the bash shell as in the following example:

$ [email protected] \
CLOUDFLARE_KEY=d299c6cdc6464f35a0f45fc789eb12a2 \
CLOUDFLARE_ZONE=example.com \
cf list

On Windows, you can do this:

C:\>set [email protected]
C:\>set CLOUDFLARE_KEY=d299c6cdc6464f35a0f45fc789eb12a2
C:\>set CLOUDFLARE_ZONE=example.com
C:\>cf list