Notifications

Learning Focus

By the end of this lesson you will understand how to configure Cloudflare notifications for proactive monitoring of your zones and services.

What Are Cloudflare Notifications?

Cloudflare Notifications alert you when important events occur — SSL certificate expiration, DDoS attacks, origin server downtime, and usage thresholds. Notifications are free on all plans and can be delivered via email, webhook, or PagerDuty.

Available Notification Types (Free Plan)

Notification	Trigger
SSL certificate expiration	Universal SSL certificate is expiring
DDoS attack alert	An active DDoS attack is detected on your zone
Origin error rate	High 5xx error rate from your origin server
DNS record changes	Records are added, modified, or deleted
Nameserver change	Your nameservers are changed or removed
Usage-based billing	Approaching or exceeding usage limits (Workers, KV, etc.)
Passive origin monitoring	Origin appears unreachable

Configuring Notifications

Step 1: Navigate to Notifications

1. Go to Cloudflare Dashboard → Notifications → Create

Step 2: Select Notification Type

Choose from the available categories:

• Security — DDoS, SSL expiration
• Origin health — 5xx errors, origin unreachable
• DNS — Record changes, nameserver changes
• Usage — Billing and quota alerts
• Account — Login, API token usage

Step 3: Configure Delivery

Delivery Method	How to Set Up
Email	Add email addresses (default — always available)
Webhook	Provide a webhook URL (Slack, Discord, Teams, custom)
PagerDuty	Connect your PagerDuty account

Webhook Example (Slack)

Slack incoming webhook payload (auto-generated by Cloudflare)

{
  "text": "Cloudflare Alert: DDoS attack detected on example.com",
  "attachments": [
    {
      "color": "danger",
      "fields": [
        { "title": "Zone", "value": "example.com" },
        { "title": "Attack Type", "value": "HTTP Flood" },
        { "title": "Status", "value": "Mitigating" }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Recommended Notifications

For most users, these notifications should be enabled:

Notification	Why
SSL certificate expiration	Avoid downtime from expired certificates
DDoS attack alert	Know when your site is under attack
Origin error rate	Detect origin server issues before users complain
Nameserver change	Detect unauthorized nameserver modifications

Key Takeaways

• Cloudflare Notifications are free and provide proactive alerts for critical events.
• Delivery via email, webhooks (Slack/Discord/Teams), or PagerDuty.
• At minimum, enable alerts for SSL expiration, DDoS attacks, and origin errors.
• Notifications require no code — configured entirely through the dashboard.

What's Next

• Continue to Miscellaneous Services to learn about Zaraz, Time Services, and Randomness Beacon.