Skip to main content

External DNS records with Crossplane and Cloudflare

This document explains how I deploy Crossplane with the Cloudflare provider to manage external CNAME DNS records in my GitOps workflow.

About external DNS records with Crossplane and Cloudflare​

Crossplane transforms cloud services into Kubernetes APIs, enabling GitOps friendly management of DNS entries. By installing the Crossplane control plane, configuring the Cloudflare provider, and declaring Record resources, we automate the lifecycle of CNAME records.

info

Maintain manifest definitions in k8s/infrastructure/controllers/crossplane/ and each application’s directory to prevent documentation drift.

More details about the Cloudflare provider setup​

  • Crossplane chart Deploys Crossplane into the crossplane-system namespace to enable its CRDs and controllers.

  • ExternalSecret Retrieves the Cloudflare API token from a Bitwarden backed ClusterSecretStore and templates a Kubernetes Secret containing a creds field with JSON credentials.

  • Provider Installs the Crossplane Cloudflare provider package.

  • ProviderConfig References the synced Secret's creds key to supply credentials to the provider.

Prerequisites​

  • A Kubernetes cluster with kubectl access.
  • A ClusterSecretStore containing a valid Cloudflare API token under the key infra-cloudflare-api-token.
  • GitOps tooling (Argo CD, Flux, etc.) configured to apply this repository.

Overview of steps​

  1. Deploy Crossplane: Install the Crossplane Helm chart into crossplane-system.
  2. Fetch Cloudflare token: Create an ExternalSecret to sync the API token into a Secret.
  3. Install Cloudflare provider: Apply the Provider and ProviderConfig manifests.
  4. Declare DNS records: Add dns-record.yaml and update kustomization.yaml in each service repo.
  5. Apply and verify: Deploy manifests and confirm records in Crossplane and Cloudflare.

Deploy Crossplane and configure the Cloudflare provider​

  1. Install Crossplane chart Apply the official Crossplane Helm chart into crossplane-system via your GitOps tool.

  2. Configure external secrets Define an ExternalSecret pointing to the Bitwarden backed ClusterSecretStore to sync infra-cloudflare-api-token and infra-cloudflare-account-id into a Kubernetes Secret named cloudflare-api-token. The secret includes a creds key containing { "api_token": "...", "account_id": "..." }.

  3. Install provider and credentials Apply the Crossplane Provider for Cloudflare and a ProviderConfig that references the creds key in cloudflare-api-token.

Apply DNS records for each service​

Each application repository should include:

  1. A dns-record.yaml manifest declaring a Record (type CNAME) with:

    • metadata.name and metadata.namespace matching the service.
    • spec.forProvider.name as the hostname (e.g., frigate).
    • spec.forProvider.value as the Cloudflare Tunnel target.

  2. An update to kustomization.yaml adding dns-record.yaml to the resources list.

Repeat for Immich, Jellyfin, Jellyseerr, Baby Buddy, IT Tools, Authentik, etc., adjusting names and namespaces per service.

Verify the configuration​

  • Crossplane resources Run kubectl get records.dns.cloudflare.upbound.io -A and confirm each record’s status is READY.

  • Cloudflare dashboard In Cloudflare UI, go to DNS → your.domain.tld and verify that CNAME entries point to the correct Tunnel hostnames.