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📅 Date: 2025-09-04
🔧 Tools: Cloudflare, Zoho Mail, AWS EC2, Elastic IP, Apache, Certbot (Let’s En$
How It Started:
Today’s goal was to protect my website. I decided to start with Cloudflare and $
The Problem
To have a proper setup I needed:
Email address for the domain
DNS records for website + mail
Static IP for my AWS instance
SSL certificate installed directly on the server
The Fix
- Domain + SSL via Cloudflare:
Bought a domain on Cloudflare
Activated free SSL included in the plan
- Zoho Mail setup:
Used Zoho’s free plan (5 GB/mailbox, up to 5 accounts)
Authorized DNS with Zoho and added MX records (mx.zoho.eu)
Configured priority levels (10 → 20 → 30) for redundancy
- DNS Records:
Added www as a CNAME alias
Set MX for mail delivery
Bound domain to AWS Elastic IP (so DNS won’t break after reboot)
- Elastic IP:
Allocated Elastic IP in AWS
Attached it to the EC2 instance to prevent IP changes
- SSL Certificate (Let’s Encrypt + Certbot):
Installed certbot on the EC2 instance
Generated SSL certificate with certbot
Configured Apache to use HTTPS
What I Learned:
Cloudflare free plan already includes Universal SSL, but server-side SSL is s$
MX records define where domain mail goes, priority numbers ensure fallback or$
Elastic IP is essential for stable DNS pointing to AWS.
Certbot automates SSL certificate creation and Apache integration.
Real setup = domain → Cloudflare proxy → AWS server with SSL.
✍ Personal Note:
All of this was mostly for learning — now my portfolio website has HTTPS.
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