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Origins

An origin is the server that stores your actual website content. Our CDN pulls content from this address to deliver it to your visitors.

Origins

Origins are the servers to which the CDN connects to fetch content requested from the CDN. These servers can be dedicated to the CDN, or also serve content directly to some clients.

Backend FQDN

Origin servers are specified using a fully qualified domain name (FQDN). The CDN resolves the origin server addresses through DNS lookups and connects to these servers to fetch content.

Backend TLS

When enabled (default), the CDN connects to origin servers using HTTPS.

Backend port

By default, the CDN connects to your origin servers on port 443 when HTTPS is enabled, or port 80 otherwise.

This setting overrides the default port.

Origin secret

To prevent unauthorized direct access to your origin server, the CDN can send a secret header with each backend request. This allows your origin to verify that requests are coming from the CDN and not from attackers bypassing it.

The origin secret is configured with two settings:

  • Origin Secret Header Name: The name of the HTTP header to send (e.g., X-Origin-Secret)
  • Origin Secret Header Value: The secret value that your origin server should validate

Your origin server should check for this header and reject requests that don't include the correct secret value, for example by responding with the status code 400 Bad Request.

Host header

The host header in requests to the CDN is used to route the request to your configuration and the objects cached by the CDN for you. This includes routing the request to the configured origin server.

If you need to change the host header sent to your origin servers, there is a special setting linked to each of your origins. This is required by many backends that validate the host header.