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Reference zones

During an internal DNS query resolution, if no internal record is found within a matching internal zone, Cloudflare will check if the matching internal zone is referencing another internal zone. Successive references can be followed with a maximum of five references in a chain.

Configuration conditions

Each internal zone can only reference one other zone.
The same zone can be referenced by multiple internal zones.
Public zones cannot be used as reference zones.
Reference zones do not have to be linked to the same DNS view as the zone referencing them. They may also not be linked to any view at all.

Set up

In the Cloudflare dashboard, go to the Internal DNS page.
Go to Internal DNS ↗
Select a zone.
Within the selected zone, go to Reference zone.
Select Add reference zone. If your zone already has a reference zone set up, you must first remove it. As explained in the configuration conditions, each internal zone can only reference one other zone at a time.
Find the zone you want to use as reference and choose Select in the respective row.

Use the Update DNS settings endpoint. In --json, specify the internal_dns object with the parameter reference_zone_id.

In the following example, internal zone A (ID 8a904aeb565c42cfa207d98f6edea2f3) is referencing internal zone B (ID 8e64c6fb4b514f3faf64de81efc11e51).

Required API token permissions

At least one of the following token permissions is required:

Zone DNS Settings Write
DNS Write

Update DNS Settings

curl "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/8a904aeb565c42cfa207d98f6edea2f3/dns_settings" \
	--request PATCH \
	--header "Authorization: Bearer $CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN" \
	--json '{
		"internal_dns": {
				"reference_zone_id": "8e64c6fb4b514f3faf64de81efc11e51"
		}
	}'

A third zone (C) could also point to zone B as a reference, but zone A cannot add another zone as a reference while also having zone B configured as its reference zone.