Proximity steering
Proximity Steering routes visitors or internal services to the closest physical data center.
To use proximity steering on a load balancer, you first need to add GPS coordinates to each origin pool.
When to add proximity steering
- For new pools, add GPS coordinates when you create a pool.
- For existing pools, add GPS coordinates when managing pools or in the Add Traffic Steering step of creating a load balancer.
How to add proximity steering
To add coordinates when creating or editing a pool:
- Click the Configure co-ordinates for Proximity Steering dropdown.
- Enter the latitude and longitude or drag a marker on the map.
- Select Save.
EDNS Client Subnet (ECS) support
EDNS Client Subnet (ECS) is a DNS extension that enables a recursive DNS resolver to include the subnet of the user’s IP.
ECS support provides customers with more control over location-based steering during gray-clouded DNS resolutions and can be used for proximity or geo (country) steering.
Customers can configure their load balancer using the location_strategy parameter, which includes the properties prefer_ecs and mode.
prefer_ecs determines whether the ECS GeoIP should be preferred as the authoritative location.
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
"always" | Always prefers ECS. |
"never" | Never prefers ECS. |
"proximity" | Prefers ECS only when steering_policy="proximity". |
"geo" | Prefers ECS only when steering_policy="geo". |
mode determines the authoritative location when ECS is not preferred, does not exist in the request, or its GeoIP lookup is unsuccessful.
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
"pop" | Uses the Cloudflare PoP location. |
"resolver_ip" | Uses the DNS resolver GeoIP location. If the GeoIP lookup is unsuccessful, it uses the Cloudflare PoP location. |