Network & SecurityLoad Balancer

Attach VMs

A load balancer routes to backends — each one a service, ip, or hostname target. To balance traffic across your virtual machines, add each VM as a backend using its IP address.

Before you begin

  • Two or more running VMs in the same workspace serving the same application (Create a VM)
  • The application listening on the same port on every VM
  • A health endpoint on each VM (e.g. /health) so failed instances are removed automatically

Add VMs as backends

1

Collect the VM addresses

Open each VM’s detail page and note its IP address. Prefer private IPs when the VMs and load balancer share a network — traffic stays internal.

2

Add a backend row per VM

In the load balancer create form (or when recreating with updated backends), add one row per VM:

FieldValue
Typeip — or hostname if you address VMs by DNS name
TargetThe VM’s IP address, e.g. 10.8.0.12
PortThe port your application listens on
Weight100 for an equal split — adjust to shift traffic
TLSEnable only if the VM serves TLS on that port
3

Verify distribution

After creation, open the detail page — the Backends table lists every VM with its type, target, port, weight, and TLS setting. Send a few requests to the endpoint URL and confirm they spread across VMs (watch your application logs, or include the hostname in a test response).

Scaling the pool

To add or remove VMs from rotation, update the backend list. Unhealthy VMs are removed from rotation automatically by health checks — you don’t need to remove a VM that’s temporarily down.

To drain a VM before maintenance without removing it, lower its weight so new traffic prefers the other backends.