Today, like the past few days, we have had some downtime. Apparently some script kids are enjoying themselves by targeting our server (and others). Sorry for the inconvenience.
Most of these ‘attacks’ are targeted at the database, but some are more ddos-like and can be mitigated by using a CDN. Some other Lemmy servers are using Cloudflare, so we know that works. Therefore we have chosen Cloudflare as CDN / DDOS protection platform for now. We will look into other options, but we needed something to be implemented asap.
For the other attacks, we are using them to investigate and implement measures like rate limiting etc.
Its not. I explained in the below comment why Cloudflare and others like them helps you decentralise. And other benefits.
It was an intentionally loaded question for the commentor I was replying to. I’ve used cloudflair services many times because they provide outstanding service…they are a company who consciously decided they wanted to excel in just a few things, they got very good at those few things, and they are still very good at those few things.
I speculate people are kneejerking against the notion of “putting all your eggs in one basket”, whithout stopping to think that cloudflair’s entire service offering is about spreading your eggs out across multiple baskets. And it’s not like you’re stuck with them - companies can and do partner with multiple cdn’s all the time to diversify their peering arrangements.