Intro
The examples provided on github are kind of wrong. I created an example script which actually works. If you simply copy their example and try the one where you add a DNS record using the python interface to the api, you will get this error:
CloudFlare.exceptions.CloudFlareAPIError: Requires permission “com.cloudflare.api.account.zone.create” to create zones for the selected account
Read on to see the corrected script.
The details
I call the program below listrecords.py. This one was copied from somewhere and it did simply work without modification:
import CloudFlare
import sys
def main():
zone_name = sys.argv[1]
cf = CloudFlare.CloudFlare()
# query for the zone name and expect only one value back
try:
zones = cf.zones.get(params = {'name':zone_name,'per_page':1})
except CloudFlare.exceptions.CloudFlareAPIError as e:
exit('/zones.get %d %s - api call failed' % (e, e))
except Exception as e:
exit('/zones.get - %s - api call failed' % (e))
if len(zones) == 0:
exit('No zones found')
# extract the zone_id which is needed to process that zone
zone = zones[0]
zone_id = zone['id']
# request the DNS records from that zone
try:
dns_records = cf.zones.dns_records.get(zone_id)
except CloudFlare.exceptions.CloudFlareAPIError as e:
exit('/zones/dns_records.get %d %s - api call failed' % (e, e))
# print the results - first the zone name
print("zone_id=%s zone_name=%s" % (zone_id, zone_name))
# then all the DNS records for that zone
for dns_record in dns_records:
r_name = dns_record['name']
r_type = dns_record['type']
r_value = dns_record['content']
r_id = dns_record['id']
print('\t', r_id, r_name, r_type, r_value)
exit(0)
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
The next script adds a DNS record. This is the one which I needed to modify.
# kind of from https://github.com/cloudflare/python-cloudflare
# except that most of their python examples are wrong. So this is a working version...
import sys
import CloudFlare
def main():
zone_name = sys.argv[1]
print('input zone name',zone_name)
cf = CloudFlare.CloudFlare()
# zone_info is a list: [{'id': '20bd55fbc94ff155c468739', 'name': 'johnstechtalk-2.com', 'status': 'pending',
zone_info = cf.zones.get(params={'name': zone_name})
zone_id = zone_info[0]['id']
dns_records = [
{'name':'foo', 'type':'A', 'content':'192.168.0.1'},
]
for dns_record in dns_records:
r = cf.zones.dns_records.post(zone_id, data=dns_record)
exit(0)
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
The zone_id is where the original program’s wheels fell off. Cloudflare Support does not support this python api, at least that’s what they told me. So I was on my own. What gave me confidence that it really should work is that when you install the python package, it also installs cli4. And cli4 works pretty well! The examples work. cli4 is a command line program for linux. But when you examine it you realize it’s (I think) using the python behind the scenes. And in the original bad code there was a POST just to get the zone_id – that didn’t seem right to me.
References and related
The (wrong) api examples on github
My hearty endorsement of Using Cloudflare’s free tier to protect your personal web site.