Guide CyberPanel DNS vs Cloudflare: Which One Really Answers for Your Domain?

**JAY** · (This post was last modified: 10-28-2026, 04:59 AM by JAY.)

CyberPanel DNS vs Cloudflare: Which One Really Answers for Your Domain?

CyberPanel ships its own DNS server (PowerDNS) and quietly fills it with records every time you create a website. Many people host DNS at Cloudflare or their registrar instead, and then wonder why the DNS page in CyberPanel shows different records, or why port 53 is open on their server. We looked at what CyberPanel actually created on our test server, which uses Cloudflare for DNS.

Step 1: Find out who really answers for your domain
Only the nameservers set at your registrar matter. Check them from any machine:

Code:

dig +short NS yourdomain.com

Ours printed

Code:

sam.ns.cloudflare.com

and

Code:

blair.ns.cloudflare.com

. That means Cloudflare answers for the whole domain, and anything in CyberPanel's DNS is ignored by the rest of the world. If you see your own nameservers (like

Code:

ns1.yourdomain.com

) pointing at this server, CyberPanel's DNS is the live one and the records there matter.

Step 2: Where the DNS pages are
CyberPanel's DNS pages aren't in the new sidebar. We found them at

Code:

/dns/

:

Code:

https://YOUR-SERVER-IP:8090/dns/

Four buttons: Create Nameserver, Create DNS Zone, Delete Zone and Add/Delete Records. On our CyberPanel 3.0 build the sidebar search didn't find them; the address above works.

Step 3: What CyberPanel created on its own
We never added a DNS zone by hand. This is what Add/Delete Records showed for adminslab.com, the parent of our test site:
[Image: attachment.php?aid=505]

When we created the website

Code:

cyber.adminslab.com

(a subdomain), CyberPanel made a zone for the whole parent domain

Code:

adminslab.com

, with an A record for

Code:

adminslab.com

itself pointing to this server. Child domains got their records added there too, including

Code:

mail.

entries. There was also a zone called

Code:

localdomain.

, from the server's hostname.

That's wrong for us: the real

Code:

adminslab.com

lives on another server.
Ask the server's own PowerDNS and then a public resolver the same question:
[Image: attachment.php?aid=536]

Code:

dig @127.0.0.1 adminslab.com A +short     # this server's PowerDNS
dig @1.1.1.1 adminslab.com A +short       # what the world sees

PowerDNS answered with our CyberPanel server; the public answer was a different IP. PowerDNS also had its own SPF record for the subdomain (

Code:

v=spf1 a mx ip4:... ~all

), different from the one we set at Cloudflare.

Because our nameservers are at Cloudflare, nobody on the internet asks this server, so nothing broke. But it is confusing, and it bites people in two cases:

You edit records in CyberPanel and nothing changes, because the domain's DNS is somewhere else. Make the change where your NS records point.
You later move the domain's nameservers to this server: the stale parent zone suddenly becomes live and points your main domain at the wrong server.

Step 4: If your DNS is elsewhere, close port 53
PowerDNS was running and listening on all addresses:

Code:

ss -lunp | grep ':53 '

and CyberPanel's firewall had four rules opening port 53 (TCP and UDP, IPv4 and IPv6) to everyone:

Code:

firewall-cmd --list-rich-rules | grep 'port="53"'

An authoritative DNS server that answers for domains it doesn't really own is just attack surface.
We only use Cloudflare for DNS, so we closed port 53 on our server:

Code:

firewall-cmd --list-rich-rules | grep 'port="53"' > /root/r53
while read -r r; do firewall-cmd --permanent --remove-rich-rule="$r"; done < /root/r53
firewall-cmd --reload
firewall-cmd --list-rich-rules | grep -c 'port="53"'

Four times

Code:

success

, and the last count is . The file

Code:

/root/r53

keeps the removed rules, so you can add them back with

Code:

--add-rich-rule

the same way. Websites, mail and the panel kept working.

Two notes:

The CyberPanel Security > Firewall page keeps its own list, so it may still show port 53. The live rules are what
Code:
firewall-cmd
prints.
We left PowerDNS running. CyberPanel adds records to it every time you create a website or mail domain, and we didn't want to test what breaks if it's stopped. With the port closed, it only answers the server itself.

For more on CyberPanel's firewall, see the CyberPanel firewall guide.

If you do want to run your own DNS on CyberPanel
Then the records in Add/Delete Records are live and need to be complete: A, MX, and the TXT records for SPF, DKIM and DMARC (what to put in them). You also need:

Two nameserver names, for example
Code:
ns1.yourdomain.com
and
Code:
ns2.yourdomain.com
(Create Nameserver).
"Glue" records for those names at your registrar, pointing to your server IP(s).
Port 53 TCP and UDP open.

Most registrars want the two nameservers on different IPs. With one VPS you have a single point of failure: if the server is down, so is DNS for every domain on it, including email routing. That's the main reason many people keep DNS at Cloudflare or their registrar and use CyberPanel only for hosting.

Cloudflare tips for CyberPanel sites

Point the A record of each website to your server IP. Proxied (orange cloud) is fine for websites.
Code:
mail.
records and MX must be DNS only (grey cloud).
If Let's Encrypt fails behind Cloudflare, see fixing failed SSL in CyberPanel.

Quick checks

Code:

dig +short NS yourdomain.com            # who is in charge
dig +short A yourdomain.com             # what visitors get
dig @127.0.0.1 yourdomain.com A +short  # what this server's PowerDNS says

If the last two differ and your NS records aren't on this server, the CyberPanel zone is stale. Delete it with Delete Zone if you like; it isn't serving anything.

More CyberPanel guides

Tested on CyberPanel 3.0 (build 8, OpenLiteSpeed edition) on Ubuntu 24.04, October 2026. Menu names can change slightly between versions.

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Guide CyberPanel DNS vs Cloudflare: Which One Really Answers for Your Domain?

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