What are Cloudflare Network Settings? A Detailed and Technical Explanation of All Options.

Cloudflare’s Network tab allows you to manage your website's network-level behaviors. In this section, you can centrally control many technical settings, from IPv6 support to WebSocket connections, gRPC to maximum file upload size.

In this article, we detail each option in the Cloudflare Network section, explaining what they do, when you should use them, and their performance/security implications.

1. IPv6 Compatibility

When you keep this option enabled, Cloudflare automatically provides support for visitors coming over IPv6.
IPv6 traffic is routed through a gateway to IPv4-enabled servers.
Who should use it? Recommended for modern sites that want to support IPv6 (comes enabled by default).

2. gRPC Support

gRPC is a remote procedure call (RPC) protocol developed by Google.
It runs over HTTP/2 and is ideal for high-performance API systems.
When this setting is enabled, Cloudflare passes gRPC connections to your origin server.
Who should use it? Systems that use microservice architecture and host gRPC-based APIs.

3. WebSockets

WebSockets are used for applications that require real-time and bidirectional communication (chat applications, games, live notifications).
When this option is enabled, Cloudflare supports and forwards WebSocket connections to the origin.
Plan-based limitation: The concurrent connection limit is low on Free and Pro plans.

4. Pseudo IPv4

The X-Pseudo-IP header is added so that clients using IPv6 can communicate with servers that do not support IPv4.
In other words, for IPv4-only servers, requests from IPv6 appear as "pseudo" IPv4.
Who should use it? If the server only supports IPv4 and receives IPv6 traffic.

5. IP Geolocation

Cloudflare adds country information based on the visitor's IP address: CF-IPCountry
You can provide country-based routing or content by reading this header on the server side.
Who should use it? Sites that offer location-based content (language, price, offer differences)

⬆️ 6. Maximum Upload Size

The maximum amount of data that visitors can send to your website at one time.
This value is limited to 100 MB for the Free plan.
For example, this limit applies to forms, media uploads, or API calls.

7. Response Buffering (Enterprise Required)

Cloudflare stops sending data from the origin to the client until it has completely received it (buffering).
Advantage: Provides more consistent cache and proxy behavior.
Disadvantage: Content becomes invisible until the entire response is received.
Only available to Enterprise plan users.

8. True-Client-IP Header (Enterprise Required)

The visitor's real IP is transmitted with a special True-Client-IP header.
Although this information normally passes through X-Forwarded-For, some applications prefer the True-Client-IP header.
Recommended for privacy & security applications, only available to Enterprise users.

9. Network Error Logging (NEL)

The browser reports user-caused connection problems to Cloudflare.
For example, data such as internet disconnections and DNS resolution errors are collected.
With this data, you can analyze user connection quality and identify problematic regions.

10. Onion Routing (Tor Network Integration)

Cloudflare routes traffic from the Tor network through special onion services, thereby:
- Increasing privacy
- Better filtering spam/bot traffic
- Recognizing and protecting legitimate users
Who should use it? Sites that value privacy, activism, journalism platforms

Conclusion: What are Cloudflare Network Settings For?

Thanks to these settings:

You can increase the security of your website at the network layer,
Adapt to modern web technologies (WebSockets, gRPC, IPv6),
You can improve user experience, performance, and analysis depth.

Not all settings need to be enabled for every site. It is recommended that you activate the most appropriate options according to your system's structure and user base.