> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.sevalla.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Load balancers - Networking

> Configure networking options for your load balancer, including rate limiting.

On your load balancer's **Networking** page, you can configure rate limiting. To view these settings, go to **Load balancers** > ***load balancer name*** > **Networking**.

## Public networking

### Rate limiting

Rate limiting protects your load balancer from abusive traffic. When enabled, Cloudflare limits each visitor to **100 requests per minute** and applies your chosen action when the limit is exceeded. The limit is fixed and cannot be changed.

Because rate limiting is enforced at the edge, requests over the limit are mitigated before they reach the load balancer's destinations.

#### How requests are counted

Requests are counted per **IP address**, per **domain (hostname)**, and per **Cloudflare data center**, and each combination has its own independent counter. The limit caps individual clients; it is not a hard cap on the total traffic your load balancer receives:

* The same IP address can send up to 100 requests per minute to each of your domains. For wildcard domains, the root domain and each subdomain are counted separately.
* Requests are counted at the Cloudflare data center that serves them, so traffic reaching a domain through multiple data centers - a distributed attack, for example - can exceed 100 requests per minute in total before each source is mitigated.

#### Update rate limiting

To change your rate limiting settings, click **Update settings** within the **Rate limiting** section, toggle **Rate limiting** on or off, and choose one of the following actions:

* **Challenge:** Visitors that exceed the limit must pass a Cloudflare managed challenge to continue. Mitigation lasts 5 minutes.
* **Throttle:** Requests over the limit are blocked only while the rate stays above the limit. Traffic resumes as soon as the rate drops.
* **Ban:** Visitors that exceed the limit are blocked for 5 minutes.

To save the changes, click **Update rate limiting**.

<Info>
  Rate limiting requires an enabled primary domain with active or pointing status. If your load balancer does not have one, set it up on the [Domains](/load-balancers/domains) page first.
</Info>

<Note>
  Changes take effect within about a minute, whether you enable, disable, or switch the action. When you disable rate limiting, visitors that are already mitigated may remain blocked or challenged for up to 5 more minutes.
</Note>