How I Fixed Cloudflare Blocking My VPS Port 8090 (and Secured It with SSL)

Recently, I ran into a frustrating problem with my VPS setup. I normally accessed my CyberPanel admin via: http://domain.com:8090. It worked fine – until I decided to enable the Cloudflare proxy (orange cloud) for domain.com to get better performance and DDoS protection. The moment I did that, my panel became unreachable. I later learned the reason: Cloudflare only proxies certain ports, and 8090 isn’t one of them unless you’re on specific paid plans.

That’s a problem I’ve run into whenever I enable a CDN (Content Delivery Network) for a website hosted on a VPS running CyberPanel. At first, I wondered if I could fix it by adding a new A record like domain.com:8090, but DNS A records don’t work with ports. The solution was to create a separate subdomain specifically for accessing the CyberPanel management interface.

The Fix: Create a DNS-Only Subdomain for the Panel

Here’s how I solved it:

• Log into Cloudflare → DNS Settings
• Add a new A Record:  Type: A,  Name: panel (this makes panel.domain.com),  IPv4 Address: VPS public IP,  Proxy Status: DNS Only (gray cloud)
• Save and wait for DNS to update (usually seconds to minutes).

Now, I could visit: http://panel.domain.com:8090 – and it worked again because traffic went directly to my VPS without passing through Cloudflare’s port restrictions.

Securing It with SSL

I didn’t want to leave my admin panel on plain HTTP, so I issued a Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate for panel.domain.com directly from the terminal via SSH:

 ssh root@YOUR_VPS_IP
 sudo apt update && sudo apt install certbot
 sudo certbot certonly --standalone -d panel.domain.com --agree-tos -m you@example.com --no-eff-email
 sudo cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/panel.domain.com/fullchain.pem /usr/local/lscp/conf/cert.pem
 sudo cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/panel.domain.com/privkey.pem /usr/local/lscp/conf/key.pem
 sudo systemctl restart lscpd

After that, I could log in securely at: https://panel.domain.com:8090

Locking It Down (Optional but Recommended)

Because this bypasses Cloudflare, it exposes my VPS IP. To protect it, I used Oracle Cloud’s Ingress Rules to allow port 8090 only from my IP:

Source CIDR: MY.IP.ADDRESS/32

Protocol: TCP

Destination Port Range: 8090

Now, even if someone finds panel.domain.com, they can’t connect unless they’re on my IP.

Key Takeaways:

• Cloudflare’s proxy doesn’t work with every port – check their allowed list before enabling it.
• Use a DNS-only subdomain to bypass the proxy for unsupported ports.
• Always secure admin access with SSL and firewall rules.