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ab(1)
NAME
ab - Apache HTTP server benchmarking tool
SYNOPSIS
ab [ -k ] [ -e ] [ -q ] [ -S ] [ -i ] [ + .B -s ] [ -n requests ] [ -t
timelimit ] [ -c concurrency ] [ -p POST file ] [ -A Authentication
username:password ] [ -P Proxy Authentication username:password ] [ -H
Custom header ] [ -C Cookie name=value ] [ -T content-type ] [ -X proxy [
:port ] ] [ -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 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
-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.
-t timelimit
Maximum number of seconds to spend for benchmarking. This
implies -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. a
-n 50000 internally. Use this to benchmark the server within a
fixed total amount of time. Per default there is no timelimit.
-c concurrency
Number of multiple requests to perform at a time. Default is
one request at a time.
-p POST file
File containing data to POST.
-A Authentication username:password
Supply BASIC Authentication credentials to the server. The
username and password are separated by a single ':' and sent on
the wire uuencoded. The string is sent regardless of whether
the server needs it; (i.e., has sent an 401 authentication
needed).
-X proxy[:port]
Route all requests through the proxy (at optional port).
-P Proxy-Authentication 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 uuencoded. The string is sent regardless of
whether the proxy needs it; (i.e., has sent an 407 proxy
authentication needed).
-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.
-p Header string
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').
-T content-type
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 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.
-w Print out results in HTML tables. Default table is two columns
wide, with a white background.
-x attributes
String to use as attributes for <table>. Attributes are
inserted <table here >
-y attributes
String to use as attributes for <tr>.
-z attributes
String to use as attributes for <td>.
-V Display version number and exit.
-h Display usage information.
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.
SEE ALSO
httpd(8)
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 <sander@covalent.net> for solving this riddle.
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