Know what the orange cloud changes and what it does not
You should be able to demonstrate the result described in the lesson and explain why each step was necessary.
Step-by-step
Start with authoritative DNS
Cloudflare becomes authoritative only after the registrar points the domain to Cloudflare nameservers.
Understand proxied records
Orange-cloud records return Cloudflare edge addresses to visitors and allow HTTP/HTTPS traffic to pass through Cloudflare services.
Understand DNS-only records
Gray-cloud records expose the origin address directly and do not receive Cloudflare HTTP proxy protections.
Keep admin services separate
SSH and control-panel access are not automatically protected just because the website hostname is proxied.
Verify with dig
Check the actual DNS answer rather than assuming the dashboard change has propagated.
You should be able to demonstrate the result described in the lesson and explain why each step was necessary.
Troubleshooting
If a command or screen differs from the lesson, stop and verify the version you are using before forcing a change.
What you learned
You now understand the purpose of this part of the system and have a concrete result you can verify before continuing to the next lesson.