403 Authentication error when creating DNS records

Last updated Apr 21, 2026 When creating DNS records using Terraform, the API returns the following error:

Error: failed to create DNS record: HTTP status 403: Authentication error (10000)

This is caused by an error in your code syntax, when you are not using index [0] for the zones. Find an example below and a more detailed thread on GitHub ↗︎.

Instead of this:

zone_id = data.cloudflare_zones.example_com.id

Use this:

zone_id = data.cloudflare_zones.example_com.zones[0].id`

Was this helpful?

YesNo

On this page

403 Authentication error when creating D - 图1Docs

{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","@id":"https://developers.cloudflare.com/terraform/troubleshooting/authentication-error-dns-records/#page","headline":"403 Authentication error when creating DNS records","description":"Fix the 403 authentication error caused by incorrect zone data source indexing in Terraform.","url":"https://developers.cloudflare.com/terraform/troubleshooting/authentication-error-dns-records/","inLanguage":"en","image":"https://developers.cloudflare.com/terraform/troubleshooting/authentication-error-dns-records/og.png?v=a5efb385efc627d6","dateModified":"2026-04-21","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Cloudflare","description":"One platform for your apps, agents, and workforce. Build, secure, and scale without managing infrastructure","url":"https://www.cloudflare.com/","sameAs":["https://github.com/cloudflare","https://www.linkedin.com/company/cloudflare","https://x.com/cloudflare"],"logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://developers.cloudflare.com/logo.svg"},"address":{"@type":"PostalAddress","streetAddress":"101 Townsend St","addressLocality":"San Francisco","addressRegion":"CA","postalCode":"94107","addressCountry":"US"},"contactPoint":[{"@type":"ContactPoint","contactType":"Customer Support","url":"https://support.cloudflare.com/","availableLanguage":["English"]},{"@type":"ContactPoint","contactType":"Sales","url":"https://www.cloudflare.com/contact/","availableLanguage":["English"]}]},"isPartOf":{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://developers.cloudflare.com/#website","name":"Cloudflare Docs","url":"https://developers.cloudflare.com/"}}

description: Prevent rule ID changes in Cloudflare rulesets managed by Terraform by using the ref field. title: Rule IDs change when I modify a ruleset image: https://developers.cloudflare.com/terraform/troubleshooting/rule-id-changes/og.png?v=ebb1a641e578d0a7

Skip to content

Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://developers.cloudflare.com/terraform/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.