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ab(1)
NAME
ab - Apache HTTP server benchmarking tool
SYNOPSIS
ab [ -k ] [ -e ] [ -q ] [ -S ] [ -i ] [ -s ] [ -n requests ] [ -t timelimit
] [ -c concurrency ] [ -p POST file ] [ -A Authenticate username:password ]
[ -X proxy [ :port ] ] [ -P Proxy Authenticate username:password ] [ -H
Custom header ] [ -C Cookie name=value ] [ -T content-type ] [ -v verbosity
] ] [ -w output HTML ] ] [ -g output GNUPLOT ] ] [ -e output CSV ] ] [ -x
<table> attributes ] ] [ -y <tr> attributes ] ] [ -z <td> attributes ]
[http[s]://]hostname[:port]/path
ab [ -V ] [ -h ]
DESCRIPTION
ab is a tool for benchmarking the performance of your Apache HyperText
Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server. It does this by giving you an indication
of how many requests per second your Apache installation can serve.
OPTIONS
-k Enable the HTTP KeepAlive feature; that is, perform multiple
requests within one HTTP session. Default is no KeepAlive.
-d Do not display the "percentage served within XX [ms] table".
(legacy support).
-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).
-s When compiled in (bb -h will show you) use the SSL protected
https rather than the http protocol. This feature is
experimental and very rudimentary. You propably do not want to
use it.
-k Enable the HTTP KeepAlive feature; that is, perform multiple
requests within one HTTP session. Default is no KeepAlive. -i
Use an HTTP 'HEAD' instead of the GET method. Cannot be mixed
with POST.
-n requests The number of requests to perform for the benchmarking session.
The default is to perform just one single request, which will
not give representative benchmarking results.
-t timelimit
The number of seconds to spend benchmarking. Using this option
automatically set the number of requests for the benchmarking
session to 50000. Use this to benchmark the server for a fixed
period of time. By default, there is no timelimit.
-c concurrency
The number of simultaneous requests to perform. The default is
to perform one HTTP request at at time, that is, no
concurrency.
-p POST file
A file containing data that the program will send to the Apache
server in any HTTP POST requests.
-A Authorization username:password
Supply Basic Authentication credentials to the server. The
username and password are separated by a single ':', and sent
as uuencoded data. The string is sent regardless of whether
the server needs it; that is, has sent a 401 Authentication
needed.
-X proxy[:port]
Route all requests through the proxy (at optional port).
-P Proxy-Authorization username:password
Supply Basic Authentication credentials to a proxy en-route.
The username and password are separated by a single ':', and
sent as uuencoded data. The string is sent regardless of
whether the proxy needs it; that is, has sent a 407 Proxy
authentication needed.
-C Cookie name=value
Add a 'Cookie:' line to the request. The argument is typically
a 'name=value' pair. This option may be repeated.
-p Header string
Append extra headers to the request. The argument is typically
in the form of a valid header line, usually a colon separated
field value pair, for example, 'Accept-Encoding: zip/zop;8bit'.
-T content-type
The content-type header to use for POST data.
-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 Excell.
The labels are on the first line of the file.
-q When processing more than 150 requsts; ab outputs a progress
count on stderr every 10% or 100 requests or so. The -q flag
qill suppress these messages.
-e CSV file Write a Comma separated value (CSV) file which contains for
each percentage (from 1% to 100%) the time (in milli seconds)
it took to serve that percentage of the requests. This is
usually more usefull than the 'gnuplot' file; as the results
are already
-v Sets the verbosity level. Level 4 and above prints information
on headers, level 3 and above prints response codes (for
example, 404, 200), and level 2 and above prints warnings and
informational messages.
-w Print out results in HTML tables. The default table is two
columns wide, with a white background.
-x attributes
The string to use as attributes for <table>. Attributes are
inserted <table here >
-y attributes
The string to use as attributes for <tr>.
-z attributes
The string to use as attributes for <td>.
-V Display the version number and exit.
-h Display usage information.
BUGS
There are various statically declared buffers of fixed length. Combined
with inefficient parsing of the command line arguments, the response
headers from the server, and other external inputs, these buffers might
overflow.
Ab does not implement HTTP/1.x fully; instead, it only accepts some
'expected' forms of responses.
The rather heavy use of strstr(3) by the program may skew performance
results, since it uses significant CPU resources. Make sure that
performance limits are not hit by ab before your server's limit is reached.
The HTML output is not as complete as the text output.
Up to version 1.3d ab has propably reported values way to low for most
measurements; as a single timeout (which is usually in the order of
seconds) will shift several thousands of milli-second responses by a
considerable factor. This was further componded by a serious interger
overrun which would for realistic run's (i.e. those longer than a few
minutes) produce believable but totally bogus results. Thanks to Sander
Temme <sctemme@covalent.net> for solving this riddle.
SEE ALSO
httpd(8)
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