Route53 - NS changes not reflected to Lightsail instance

Question

I am trying to set up Cloudflare for several days already and experiencing issues with the updated NS records pointing to my Lightsail instance which in turn gets its domain information from Route 53.

Cloudflare requires me to change the Nameserver (NS) records to point towards their servers. I have done so in Route53 several days ago but so far can see via WHOIS that no change has taken effect. Now, having spent a fair bit of time with Lightsail and R53 domains, one recurring issue seems to be that, ie. when creating subdomains, that CNAME records need to be updated in both Route53 and Lightsail > Networking > Domain Zone as they somehow are not aligned and seem to run independently doing the same thing.

In the example of creating a subdomain, I found that creating a CNAME record in Lightsail Networking OR Route 53 only, it will not work, rather I have to have the same record in both places.

The challenge here now is that Lightsail Networking does not provide me with the option to change my NS, and when changing them in R53 I see no effect on either WHOIS or Cloudflare.

So in short:
I need to update my NS records, doing so in R53 yields no result for my Lightsail instance. What do I do?

Appreciate any help with this, thanks.

Answer

>  one recurring issue seems to be that, ie. when creating subdomains, that CNAME records need to be updated in both Route53 and Lightsail > Networking > Domain Zone as they somehow are not aligned and seem to run independently doing the same thing.

In DNS, there can only be one hosted zone for a given (sub-)domain. If Route 53 is the registrar for your domain, look for the Name servers under "Registered domains > " they will either match a hosted zone in Route 53 or the DNS Zone in Lightsail. Route 53 creates a Hosted zone by default when you register a domain and this can be a source of confusion later if you don't delete it.

You can delegate a sub-domain from a hosted zone in Route 53 to a DNS zone in Lightsail, but that's an advanced use-case.

> Cloudflare requires me to change the Nameserver (NS) records to point towards their servers.

If you are adding NS records on a hosted zone they must be for a sub-domain, for example www.. If you intend to use Cloudflare to manage all traffic through your domain you need to change the name servers with your registrar. Doing so will invalidate any other records you've configured in any other zone in Lightsail or Route 53.

Route53 - NS changes not reflected to Lightsail instance

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