# Maximum number of prospectors?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/maximum-number-of-prospectors/85044>\
**Category:** Beats\
**Tags:** filebeat\
**Created:** [May 9, 2017, 8:53am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/maximum-number-of-prospectors/85044 "2017-05-09T08:53:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![YuWatanabe](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/yuwatanabe/32/13259_2.png) [@YuWatanabe](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/YuWatanabe)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 8:53am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/maximum-number-of-prospectors/85044/1 "2017-05-09T08:53:54Z")

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Hello.

I am in a situation where I need to define _over 60 prospectors_ . According to the [document](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/beats/filebeat/current/configuration-filebeat-options.html) maximum number of prospectors is not mentioned.

Is this number realistic ? Also, is there any os resource I will need to aware of when defining this amount of prospectors? Number of file descriptors per prospector will be somewhere between _1-10_.

Filebeat version will be _5.4.0_.

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**Author:** ![ruflin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/ruflin/32/3116_2.png) [@ruflin](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ruflin)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 9:20am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/maximum-number-of-prospectors/85044/2 "2017-05-09T09:20:54Z")

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There is no hard limit. The main thing you should be concerned about is the ulimit (open file handlers), but this applies to overall filebeat not per prospector. If you have one prospector with 60 files or 6 prospector with 10 files each does not matter.

Do you have 600 files updated constantly or this is only the files its watching and subset is open at the same time? In general this should not be an issue.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![YuWatanabe](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/yuwatanabe/32/13259_2.png) [@YuWatanabe](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/YuWatanabe)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 9:24am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/maximum-number-of-prospectors/85044/3 "2017-05-09T09:24:07Z")

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@ruflin

Thanks for the quick reply as always.

> [@ruflin](#):
>
> Do you have 600 files updated constantly or this is only the files its watching and subset is open at the same time? In general this should not be an issue.

Subset is open at the same time. So , if there will be 1 open file and back logs are not updated.

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**Author:** ![ruflin](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/ruflin/32/3116_2.png) [@ruflin](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ruflin)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2017, 9:54am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/maximum-number-of-prospectors/85044/4 "2017-05-09T09:54:54Z")

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No worries then 🙂

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [June 6, 2017, 10:01am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/maximum-number-of-prospectors/85044/5 "2017-06-06T10:01:39Z")

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