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<parentdocument href="./">Programs</parentdocument>

<title>ab - Apache HTTP server benchmarking tool</title>

<summary>

<p><code>ab</code> is a tool for benchmarking your Apache Hypertext

Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server. It is designed to give you an impression

of how your current Apache installation performs. This especially shows

you how many requests per second your Apache installation is capable of

serving.</p>

</summary>

<seealso><program>httpd</program></seealso>

<section id="synopsis"><title>Synopsis</title>

<p><code><strong>ab</strong>

[ -<strong>A</strong> <var>auth-username</var>:<var>password</var> ]

[ -<strong>c</strong> <var>concurrency</var> ]

[ -<strong>C</strong> <var>cookie-name</var>=<var>value</var> ]

[ -<strong>d</strong> ]

[ -<strong>e</strong> <var>csv-file</var> ]

[ -<strong>g</strong> <var>gnuplot-file</var> ]

[ -<strong>h</strong> ]

[ -<strong>H</strong> <var>custom-header</var> ]

[ -<strong>i</strong> ]

[ -<strong>k</strong> ]

[ -<strong>n</strong> <var>requests</var> ]

[ -<strong>p</strong> <var>POST-file</var> ]

[ -<strong>P</strong> <var>proxy-auth-username</var>:<var>password</var> ]

[ -<strong>q</strong> ]

[ -<strong>s</strong> ]

[ -<strong>S</strong> ]

[ -<strong>t</strong> <var>timelimit</var> ]

[ -<strong>T</strong> <var>content-type</var> ]

[ -<strong>v</strong> <var>verbosity</var>]

[ -<strong>V</strong> ]

[ -<strong>w</strong> ]

[ -<strong>x</strong> <var>&lt;table&gt;-attributes</var> ]

[ -<strong>X</strong> <var>proxy</var>[:<var>port</var>] ]

[ -<strong>y</strong> <var>&lt;tr&gt;-attributes</var> ]

[ -<strong>z</strong> <var>&lt;td&gt;-attributes</var> ]

[http://]<var>hostname</var>[:<var>port</var>]/<var>path</var></code></p>

</section>

<section id="options"><title>Options</title>

<dl>

<dt><code>-A <var>auth-username</var>:<var>password</var></code></dt>

<dd>Supply BASIC Authentication credentials to the server. The username and

password are separated by a single <code>:</code> and sent on the wire

base64 encoded. The string is sent regardless of whether the server needs

it (<em>i.e.</em>, has sent an 401 authentication needed).</dd>

<dt><code>-c <var>concurrency</var></code></dt>

<dd>Number of multiple requests to perform at a time. Default is one

request at a time.</dd>

<dt><code>-C <var>cookie-name</var>=<var>value</var></code></dt>

<dd>Add a <code>Cookie:</code> line to the request. The argument is

typically in the form of a <code><var>name</var>=<var>value</var></code>

pair. This field is repeatable.</dd>

<dt><code>-d</code></dt>

<dd>Do not display the "percentage served within XX [ms] table". (legacy

support).</dd>

<dt><code>-e <var>csv-file</var></code></dt>

<dd>Write a Comma separated value (CSV) file which contains for each

percentage (from 1% to 100%) the time (in milliseconds) it took to serve

that percentage of the requests. This is usually more useful than the

'gnuplot' file; as the results are already 'binned'.</dd>

<dt><code>-g <var>gnuplot-file</var></code></dt>

<dd>Write all measured values out as a 'gnuplot' or TSV (Tab separate

values) file. This file can easily be imported into packages like Gnuplot,

IDL, Mathematica, Igor or even Excel. The labels are on the first line of

the file. </dd>

<dt><code>-h</code></dt>

<dd>Display usage information.</dd>

<dt><code>-H <var>custom-header</var></code></dt>

<dd>Append extra headers to the request. The argument is typically in

the form of a valid header line, containing a colon-separated field-value

pair (<em>i.e.</em>, <code>"Accept-Encoding: zip/zop;8bit"</code>).</dd>

<dt><code>-i</code></dt>

<dd>Do <code>HEAD</code> requests instead of <code>GET</code>.</dd>

<dt><code>-k</code></dt>

<dd>Enable the HTTP KeepAlive feature, <em>i.e.</em>, perform multiple

requests within one HTTP session. Default is no KeepAlive.</dd>

<dt><code>-n <var>requests</var></code></dt>

<dd>Number of requests to perform for the benchmarking session. The default

is to just perform a single request which usually leads to

non-representative benchmarking results.</dd>

<dt><code>-p <var>POST-file</var></code></dt>

<dd>File containing data to POST.</dd>

<dt><code>-P <var>proxy-auth-username</var>:<var>password</var></code></dt>

<dd>Supply BASIC Authentication credentials to a proxy en-route. The

username and password are separated by a single <code>:</code> and sent on

the wire base64 encoded. The string is sent regardless of whether the

proxy needs it (<em>i.e.</em>, has sent an 407 proxy authentication

needed).</dd>

<dt><code>-q</code></dt>

<dd>When processing more than 150 requests, <code>ab</code> outputs a

progress count on <code>stderr</code> every 10% or 100 requests or so. The

<code>-q</code> flag will suppress these messages.</dd>

<dt><code>-s</code></dt>

<dd>When compiled in (<code>ab -h</code> will show you) use the SSL

protected <code>https</code> rather than the <code>http</code> protocol.

This feature is experimental and <em>very</em> rudimentary. You probably

do not want to use it.</dd>

<dt><code>-S</code></dt>

<dd>Do not display the median and standard deviation values, nor display

the warning/error messages when the average and median are more than

one or two times the standard deviation apart. And default to the

min/avg/max values. (legacy support).</dd>

<dt><code>-t <var>timelimit</var></code></dt>

<dd>Maximum number of seconds to spend for benchmarking. This implies a

<code>-n 50000</code> internally. Use this to benchmark the server within a

fixed total amount of time. Per default there is no timelimit.</dd>

<dt><code>-T <var>content-type</var></code></dt>

<dd>Content-type header to use for POST data.</dd>

<dt><code>-v <var>verbosity</var></code></dt>

<dd>Set verbosity level - <code>4</code> and above prints information on

headers, <code>3</code> and above prints response codes (404, 200, etc.),

<code>2</code> and above prints warnings and info.</dd>

<dt><code>-V</code></dt>

<dd>Display version number and exit.</dd>

<dt><code>-w</code></dt>

<dd>Print out results in HTML tables. Default table is two columns wide,

with a white background.</dd>

<dt><code>-x <var>&lt;table&gt;-attributes</var></code></dt>

<dd>String to use as attributes for <code>&lt;table&gt;</code>. Attributes

are inserted <code>&lt;table <var>here</var> &gt;</code>.</dd>

<dt><code>-X <var>proxy</var>[:<var>port</var>]</code></dt>

<dd>Use a proxy server for the requests.</dd>

<dt><code>-y <var>&lt;tr&gt;-attributes</var></code></dt>

<dd>String to use as attributes for <code>&lt;tr&gt;</code>.</dd>

<dt><code>-z <var>&lt;td&gt;-attributes</var></code></dt>

<dd>String to use as attributes for <code>&lt;td&gt;</code>.</dd>

</dl>

</section>

<section id="bugs"><title>Bugs</title>

<p>There are various statically declared buffers of fixed length. Combined

with the lazy parsing of the command line arguments, the response headers

from the server and other external inputs, this might bite you.</p>

<p>It does not implement HTTP/1.x fully; only accepts some 'expected' forms

of responses. The rather heavy use of <code>strstr(3)</code> shows up top

in profile, which might indicate a performance problem; <em>i.e.</em>, you

would measure the <code>ab</code> performance rather than the server's.</p>

</section>

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