# Load balancing with a single Logstash output

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/load-balancing-with-a-single-logstash-output/55756>\
**Category:** Beats\
**Tags:** filebeat\
**Created:** [July 18, 2016, 12:01pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/load-balancing-with-a-single-logstash-output/55756 "2016-07-18T12:01:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 4

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**Author:** ![steffens](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/steffens/32/79630_2.png) [@steffens](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/steffens)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2016, 1:59pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/load-balancing-with-a-single-logstash-output/55756/4 "2016-07-20T13:59:32Z")

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> if I point Filebeat to a Logstash host with a DNS name of logstash.service.consul, which resolves to three IP addresses, can I expect Filebeat to load balance traffic across these three IP addresses?

No.

> I'm wondering how/when Filebeat resolves DNS

Filebeat queries for a list of all known IPs for some given host name.

> how/if Filebeat handles DNS records that resolve to multiple IP addresses

Filebeat selects one of the IP-addresses by random and attempts to create exactly one network connection.

You want to enable load-balancing either add all known IPs or set `output.logstash.worker: 3` in filebeat.

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_[View the full topic](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/load-balancing-with-a-single-logstash-output/55756)._