Multiple logstash nodes use file-output plugin to output messages to one file in a shared file system?

As there is no coordination around file writing between the Logstash instances, I would expect writing to a shared file to cause serious problems.

If Logstash is opening the output file with O_APPEND (which it should) then all write() operations will be made at the end of the file even if multiple processes write to the file concurrently. See write. This doesn't apply to Windows though.