• Have multiple domains mapping back to a single, canonical domain (common for domains in different countries - such as.com.au,.co.uk - that you want protected by Cloudflare).
• Are apartner ↗, agency, or IT consultancy, and manage multiple domains on behalf of your customers.
• Are moving an existing set of sites over to Cloudflare.

Using the API will allow you to add multiple sites quickly and efficiently, especially if you are already familiar with how to change your name-servers or add a DNS record.

This tutorial assumes domains will be added usingfull mode.

To add multiple sites to Cloudflare via automation, you need:

• An existingCloudflare account.
• Command line withcurl
• A CloudflareAPI token with one of the following permissions:
  • Zone-levelAdministrator
  • Zone-levelZone: Edit andDNS: Edit
  • Account-levelDomain Administrator
• To have disabledDNSSEC for each domain at your registrar (where you bought your domain name).
  • Follow thistutorial to migrate an existing DNS zone without having to disable DNSSEC

1. Create a list of domains you want to add, each on a separate line (newline separated), stored in a file such asdomains.txt.
2. Create a bash scriptadd-multiple-zones.sh and add the following. Adddomains.txt to the same directory or update its path accordingly.

fordomainin$(catdomains.txt);do
printf"Adding${domain}:\n"
curlhttps://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones\
--header"Authorization: Bearer <API_TOKEN>"\
--header"Content-Type: application/json"\
--data'{
"account": {
"id":"<ACCOUNT_ID>"
},
"name": "'"$domain"'",
"type": "full"
}'
printf"\n\n"
done

3. Open the command line and run:

bashadd-multiple-zones.sh

After adding a domain, it will be in aPending Nameserver Update state.

jq ↗ is a command-line tool that parses and beautifies JSON outputs.

This tool is a requirement to complete anyAdditional options steps in this tutorial.

echo'{"foo":{"bar":"foo","testing":"hello"}}'|jq.

Refer tojqdocumentation ↗ for more information.

Cloudflare offers aquick scan that helps populate a zone's DNS records. This scan is a best effort attempt based on a predefined list of commonly used record names and types.

This API call requires the domainID. This can be found in the following locations:

• Create Zone
• List Zones

Usingjq with the first option above, modify your scriptadd-multiple-zones.sh to extract the domain ID and run a subsequent API call to quick scan DNS records.

fordomainin$(catdomains.txt);do
printf"Adding ${domain}:\n"
add_output=`curl https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones\
--header "Authorization: Bearer <API_TOKEN>"\
--header "Content-Type: application/json"\
--data '{
"account": {
"id":"<ACCOUNT_ID>"
},
"name": "'"$domain"'",
"type": "full"
}'`
echo$add_output|jq.
domain_id=`echo $add_output | jq -r .result.id`
printf"\n\n"
printf"DNS quick scanning ${domain}:\n"
scan_output=`curl --request POST https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/$domain_id/dns_records/scan\
--header "X-Auth-Email: <EMAIL>"\
--header "X-Auth-Key: <API_KEY>"`
echo$scan_output|jq.
done

For each domain to become active on Cloudflare, it must be activated in eitherFull setup orPartial setup. The following script will output a list containing the nameservers associated with each domain.

You can find your zones nameservers in the following locations:

• Create Zone
• Zone Details

1. Modify your scriptadd-multiple-zones.sh to print a CSV with data from theCreate Zone JSON response.

fordomainin$(catdomains.txt);do
printf"Adding ${domain}:\n"
add_output=`curl https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones\
--header "Authorization: Bearer <API_TOKEN>"\
--header "Content-Type: application/json"\
--data '{
"account": {
"id": "<ACCOUNT_ID>"
},
"name": "'"$domain"'",
"type": "full"
}'`
#Createcsvofnameservers
echo$add_output|jq-r'[.result.name,.result.id,.result.name_servers[]] | @csv'>>/tmp/domain_nameservers.csv
domain_id=`echo $add_output | jq -r .result.id`
printf"\n\n"
printf"DNS quick scanning ${domain}:\n"
scan_output=`curl --request POST https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/$domain_id/dns_records/scan\
--header "X-Auth-Email: <EMAIL>"\
--header "X-Auth-Key: <API_KEY>"`
echo$scan_output|jq.
done
printf"name_servers are saved in /tmp/domain_nameservers"
cat/tmp/domain_nameservers.csv

2. Use the values in theNAME SERVERS column toupdate the nameservers at the registrar of each domain.

There are limitations on the number of domains you can add at a time. If you attempt to add more than 50 domains at a time, any additional domains will be blocked until your current domains are active.

After that, you cannot have more pending sites than active sites associated with your Cloudflare account. We recommend waiting until your pending sites have beenactivated before adding additional domains.

If any errors were returned in this process, the domain may not be registered (or only just registered), be a subdomain, or otherwise been invalid. For more details, refer toCannot add domain.