NAME¶
ab - Apache HTTP server benchmarking tool
SYNOPSIS¶
ab [ -
A auth-username:
password ] [ -
b
windowsize ] [ -
c concurrency ] [ -
C
cookie-name=
value ] [ -
d ] [ -
e csv-file ]
[ -
f protocol ] [ -
g gnuplot-file ] [ -
h ]
[ -
H custom-header ] [ -
i ] [ -
k ] [ -
n
requests ] [ -
p POST-file ] [ -
P
proxy-auth-username:
password ] [ -
q ] [ -
r ] [
-
s ] [ -
S ] [ -
t timelimit ] [ -
T
content-type ] [ -
u PUT-file ] [ -
v
verbosity] [ -
V ] [ -
w ] [ -
x
<table>-attributes ] [ -
X proxy[:
port] ] [
-
y <tr>-attributes ] [ -
z
<td>-attributes ] [ -
Z ciphersuite ]
[http[s]://]
hostname[:
port]/
path
SUMMARY¶
ab 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.
OPTIONS¶
- -A auth-username:password
- Supply BASIC Authentication credentials to the server. The
username and password are separated by a single : and sent on the wire
base64 encoded. The string is sent regardless of whether the server needs
it ( i.e., has sent an 401 authentication needed).
- -b windowsize
- Size of TCP send/receive buffer, in bytes.
- -c concurrency
- Number of multiple requests to perform at a time. Default
is one request at a time.
- -C cookie-name=value
- Add a Cookie: line to the request. The argument is
typically in the form of a name=value pair. This field is
repeatable.
- -d
- Do not display the "percentage served within XX [ms]
table". (legacy support).
- -e csv-file
- 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'.
- -f protocol
- Specify SSL/TLS protocol (SSL2, SSL3, TLS1, or ALL).
- -g gnuplot-file
- 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.
- -h
- Display usage information.
- -H custom-header
- 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 ( i.e., "Accept-Encoding:
zip/zop;8bit").
- -i
- Do HEAD requests instead of GET.
- -k
- Enable the HTTP KeepAlive feature, i.e., perform
multiple requests within one HTTP session. Default is no KeepAlive.
- -n requests
- 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.
- -p POST-file
- File containing data to POST. Remember to also set -T.
- -P proxy-auth-username:password
- Supply BASIC Authentication credentials to a proxy
en-route. The username and password are separated by a single : and sent
on the wire base64 encoded. The string is sent regardless of whether the
proxy needs it ( i.e., has sent an 407 proxy authentication
needed).
- -q
- When processing more than 150 requests, ab outputs a
progress count on stderr every 10% or 100 requests or so. The -q flag will
suppress these messages.
- -r
- Don't exit on socket receive errors.
- -s
- When compiled in (ab -h will show you) use the SSL
protected https rather than the http protocol. This feature is
experimental and very rudimentary. You probably do not want to use
it.
- -S
- 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).
- -t timelimit
- Maximum number of seconds to spend for benchmarking. This
implies a -n 50000 internally. Use this to benchmark the server within a
fixed total amount of time. Per default there is no timelimit.
- -T content-type
- Content-type header to use for POST/PUT data, eg.
application/x-www-form-urlencoded. Default: text/plain.
- -u PUT-file
- File containing data to PUT. Remember to also set -T.
- -v verbosity
- Set verbosity level - 4 and above prints information on
headers, 3 and above prints response codes (404, 200, etc.), 2 and above
prints warnings and info.
- -V
- Display version number and exit.
- -w
- Print out results in HTML tables. Default table is two
columns wide, with a white background.
- -x <table>-attributes
- String to use as attributes for <table>. Attributes
are inserted <table here >.
- -X proxy[:port]
- Use a proxy server for the requests.
- -y <tr>-attributes
- String to use as attributes for <tr>.
- -z <td>-attributes
- String to use as attributes for <td>.
- -Z ciphersuite
- Specify SSL/TLS cipher suite (See openssl ciphers).
BUGS¶
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.
It does not implement HTTP/1.x fully; only accepts some 'expected' forms of
responses. The rather heavy use of
strstr(3) shows up top in profile, which
might indicate a performance problem;
i.e., you would measure the ab
performance rather than the server's.