Create load balancer on test domain
Instead of starting on your production domain, you likely should create a load balancer on a test or staging domain. This may involve temporary changes to your monitors and pools, depending on your infrastructure setup.
Starting with a test domain allows you to verify everything is working correctly before routing production traffic.
To create a load balancer in the dashboard:
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Go to Traffic > Load Balancing.
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Select Create Load Balancer.
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On the Hostname page:
- Enter a Hostname, which is the DNS name at which the load balancer is available. For more details on record priority, refer to DNS records for load balancing.
- Toggle the orange cloud icon to update the proxy mode, which affects how traffic is routed and which IP addresses are advertised.
- If you want session-based load balancing, toggle the Session Affinity switch.
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Select Next.
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On the Add a Pool page:
- Select one or more existing pools or create a new pool.
- If you are going to set traffic steering to Off, re-order the pools in your load balancer to adjust the fallback order.
- If needed, update the Fallback Pool.
- If you choose to set traffic steering to Random, you can set Weights (via the API) to your pools to determine the percentage of traffic sent to each pool.
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Select Next.
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On the Monitors page:
- Review the monitors attached to your pools.
- If needed, you can attach an existing monitor or create a new monitor.
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Select Next.
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On the Traffic Steering page, choose an option for Traffic steering and select Next.
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On the Custom Rules page, select an existing rule or create a new rule.
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Select Next.
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On the Review page:
- Review your configuration and make any changes.
- Choose whether to Save as Draft or Save and Deploy.
For a full list of properties, refer to Create Load Balancer. If you need help with API authentication, refer to Cloudflare API documentation.
curl "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/{zone_id}/load_balancers" \--header "Authorization: Bearer <API_TOKEN>" \--header "Content-Type: application/json" \--data '{ "description": "Load Balancer for lb.example.com", "name": "lb.example.com", "enabled": true, "ttl": 30, "fallback_pool": "17b5962d775c646f3f9725cbc7a53df4", "default_pools": [ "17b5962d775c646f3f9725cbc7a53df4", "9290f38c5d07c2e2f4df57b1f61d4196", "00920f38ce07c2e2f4df50b1f61d4194" ], "proxied": true, "steering_policy": "random_steering", "session_affinity": "cookie", "session_affinity_attributes": { "samesite": "Auto", "secure": "Auto", "drain_duration": 100, "zero_downtime_failover": "sticky" }, "session_affinity_ttl": 5000, "adaptive_routing": { "failover_across_pools": true }, "location_strategy": { "prefer_ecs": "always", "mode": "resolver_ip" }, "random_steering": { "pool_weights": { "de90f38ced07c2e2f4df50b1f61d4194": 0.3, "9290f38c5d07c2e2f4df57b1f61d4196": 0.5 }, "default_weight": 0.2 }}'The response contains the complete definition of the new load balancer.
{ "success": true, "errors": [], "messages": [], "result": { "id": "699d98642c564d2e855e9661899b7252", "created_on": "2021-01-01T05:20:00.12345Z", "modified_on": "2021-01-01T05:20:00.12345Z", "description": "Load Balancer for lb.example.com", "name": "lb.example.com", "enabled": true, "ttl": 30, "fallback_pool": "17b5962d775c646f3f9725cbc7a53df4", "default_pools": [ "17b5962d775c646f3f9725cbc7a53df4", "9290f38c5d07c2e2f4df57b1f61d4196", "00920f38ce07c2e2f4df50b1f61d4194" ], "proxied": true, "steering_policy": "random_steering", "session_affinity": "cookie", "session_affinity_attributes": { "samesite": "Auto", "secure": "Auto", "drain_duration": 100, "zero_downtime_failover": "sticky" }, "session_affinity_ttl": 5000, "random_steering": { "pool_weights": { "de90f38ced07c2e2f4df50b1f61d4194": 0.3, "9290f38c5d07c2e2f4df57b1f61d4196": 0.5 }, "default_weight": 0.2 } }}