# Elasticearch: Load balanced 2 master nodes

**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticearch-load-balanced-2-master-nodes/115660
**Category:** Elasticsearch
**Created:** [January 16, 2018, 8:17am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticearch-load-balanced-2-master-nodes/115660 "2018-01-16T08:17:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 9

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### Author: ![anon99430464](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a587f6/32.png) [@anon99430464](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/anon99430464)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2018, 9:33am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/elasticearch-load-balanced-2-master-nodes/115660/9 "2018-01-17T09:33:20Z")

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> [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](#):
>
> In order to avoid split-brain scenarios and resulting data loss, Elasticsearch requires a majority of master eligible nodes to be available in order to elect a master node. With only 2 master eligible nodes the majority is 2 nodes. This means that you can not elect a master if one of the nodes is missing.
> 
> Once you have 3 master eligible nodes in the cluster, the size of the majority is still 2, which means you can lose one node and still be able to elect a master.

Does the third (master only) node need to be on a separate server? To be certain that when one server is down, everything is still consistent?

So if I get this right we should set up:  
Server one:

> node.data: true  
> node.ingest: true  
> node.master: true  
> discovery.zen.ping.unicast.hosts: ["node1", "node2", "node3"]  
> discovery.zen.minimum\_master\_nodes: 2

Server two:

> node.data: true  
> node.ingest: true  
> node.master: true  
> discovery.zen.ping.unicast.hosts: ["node1", "node2", "node3"]  
> discovery.zen.minimum\_master\_nodes: 2

Server three:

> node.data: false  
> node.ingest: false  
> node.master: true  
> discovery.zen.ping.unicast.hosts: ["node1", "node2", "node3"]  
> discovery.zen.minimum\_master\_nodes: 2

Then we should be safe if any of the servers are down?

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