Understanding DNS: A Simple Guide

I’ve always heard words like DNS, SSL, and Cloudflare, but honestly, I didn’t really know what they meant. Recently, I bought my first domain jaivardhan.online from Hostinger, and I decided to try connecting it to Cloudflare.

It turned into a fun learning journey where I not only connected my domain but also finally understood what all these “DNS records” mean. Here’s the full story — step by step, just like I did it.

Step 1: Buying the Domain

I started with Hostinger because it had cheap domains. I bought jaivardhan.online. At this point, I thought, “Okay, cool, I own a website name.” But I soon realized: a domain is just a name — it doesn’t do anything by itself.

If I wanted to connect it to a server, add SSL, or protect it, I needed to manage its DNS (Domain Name System). And that’s where Cloudflare came in.

Step 2: Adding My Domain to Cloudflare

I created a free account on Cloudflare. The first thing Cloudflare asked was: What’s your domain?
So I typed in jaivardhan.online.

Cloudflare then gave me three options:

Scan existing DNS records automatically
Enter them manually
Upload a DNS file

I picked automatic scan, because why make life harder?

Within a few seconds, Cloudflare pulled in all the DNS records that were already on Hostinger. I was surprised at how many things were there.

Step 3: Understanding the DNS Records

When Cloudflare scanned my domain, here’s what I saw:

1 A Record → This was the main one pointing to my server’s IP (the “home address” of my website).
1 AAAA Record → Same as the A record, but for IPv6.
12 CAA Records → These were for SSL certificate providers. I didn’t know why there were so many.
1 CNAME Record → This pointed www.jaivardhan.online to jaivardhan.online.
2 NS Records → These were Hostinger’s default nameservers.

At first, this looked scary. But step by step, I figured them out:

The A Record is the most important — it connects your domain to your server.
The CNAME is just an alias (www → main domain).
The CAA Records tell which companies are allowed to issue SSL certificates for your domain. But since Cloudflare provides its own SSL for free, I didn’t need them.
The NS Records (name servers) were Hostinger’s. But soon, I’d have to replace them with Cloudflare’s.

Step 4: Cleaning Up

I went back to Hostinger’s DNS panel and deleted all the CAA records, because they were unnecessary once I moved to Cloudflare.

Then I noticed something interesting: even after deleting them in Hostinger, Cloudflare’s dashboard was still showing those old records. That’s because Cloudflare had copied them during the scan.

So I deleted them from Cloudflare too. I also saw some yellow warning icons on the AAAA and CNAME records saying “not covered by SSL yet.” I didn’t panic — Cloudflare was just waiting for me to finish setup.

Step 5: Switching Name Servers to Cloudflare

Now came the big moment: actually giving Cloudflare control of my domain.

Cloudflare gave me two new name servers:

noor.ns.cloudflare.com
chase.ns.cloudflare.com

I went back to Hostinger → “Domain” → “Nameservers” → and replaced Hostinger’s default ones with these two.

This basically told the internet: “Hey, from now on, Cloudflare is the manager of my domain.”

After saving, Cloudflare showed me a message: “Waiting for nameserver changes… this can take up to 24 hours.”
That was a little disappointing, but I learned it’s normal. DNS takes time to update all over the world.

Step 6: Checking Propagation

While waiting, I got curious: how do I know if the change is working?

That’s when I found WhatsMyDNS.net . This site lets you check if your domain is pointing to the right IP across different countries.

When I entered jaivardhan.online, I saw green ticks all over the map with the IP . That number was my domain’s server IP address. (Honestly, I was so happy seeing that. It felt like my domain was alive across the globe!)

I also checked on ICANN Lookup . and it confirmed my domain was now using Cloudflare’s nameservers (noor and chase). Success!

At the start, I thought moving my domain would just be clicking a few buttons. But it turned into a really useful exercise. I not only connected my Hostinger domain to Cloudflare but also learned the meaning of DNS records, what name servers do, and why SSL matters.

WTH is DNS ???