1AB(8) ab AB(8)
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6 ab - Apache HTTP server benchmarking tool
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10 ab [ -A auth-username:password ] [ -c concurrency ] [ -C cookie-
11 name=value ] [ -d ] [ -e csv-file ] [ -g gnuplot-file ] [ -h ] [ -H
12 custom-header ] [ -i ] [ -k ] [ -n requests ] [ -p POST-file ] [ -P
13 proxy-auth-username:password ] [ -q ] [ -s ] [ -S ] [ -t timelimit ] [
14 -T content-type ] [ -v verbosity] [ -V ] [ -w ] [ -x <table>-attributes
15 ] [ -X proxy[:port] ] [ -y <tr>-attributes ] [ -z <td>-attributes ]
16 [http://]hostname[:port]/path
17
21 ab is a tool for benchmarking your Apache Hypertext Transfer Protocol
22 (HTTP) server. It is designed to give you an impression of how your
23 current Apache installation performs. This especially shows you how
24 many requests per second your Apache installation is capable of serv‐
25 ing.
26
30 -A auth-username:password
31 Supply BASIC Authentication credentials to the server. The user‐
32 name and password are separated by a single : and sent on the
33 wire base64 encoded. The string is sent regardless of whether
34 the server needs it (i.e., has sent an 401 authentication
35 needed).
36 -c concurrency
38 Number of multiple requests to perform at a time. Default is one
39 request at a time.
40 -C cookie-name=value
42 Add a Cookie: line to the request. The argument is typically in
43 the form of a name=value pair. This field is repeatable.
44 -d Do not display the "percentage served within XX [ms] table".
46 (legacy support).
47 -e csv-file
49 Write a Comma separated value (CSV) file which contains for each
50 percentage (from 1% to 100%) the time (in milliseconds) it took
51 to serve that percentage of the requests. This is usually more
52 useful than the 'gnuplot' file; as the results are already
53 'binned'.
54 -g gnuplot-file
56 Write all measured values out as a 'gnuplot' or TSV (Tab sepa‐
57 rate values) file. This file can easily be imported into pack‐
58 ages like Gnuplot, IDL, Mathematica, Igor or even Excel. The
59 labels are on the first line of the file.
60 -h Display usage information.
62 -H custom-header
64 Append extra headers to the request. The argument is typically
65 in the form of a valid header line, containing a colon-separated
66 field-value pair (i.e., "Accept-Encoding: zip/zop;8bit").
67 -i Do HEAD requests instead of GET.
69 -k Enable the HTTP KeepAlive feature, i.e., perform multiple
71 requests within one HTTP session. Default is no KeepAlive.
72 -n requests
74 Number of requests to perform for the benchmarking session. The
75 default is to just perform a single request which usually leads
76 to non-representative benchmarking results.
77 -p POST-file
79 File containing data to POST.
80 -P proxy-auth-username:password
82 Supply BASIC Authentication credentials to a proxy en-route. The
83 username and password are separated by a single : and sent on
84 the wire base64 encoded. The string is sent regardless of
85 whether the proxy needs it (i.e., has sent an 407 proxy authen‐
86 tication needed).
87 -q When processing more than 150 requests, ab outputs a progress
89 count on stderr every 10% or 100 requests or so. The -q flag
90 will suppress these messages.
91 -s When compiled in (ab -h will show you) use the SSL protected
93 https rather than the http protocol. This feature is experimen‐
94 tal and very rudimentary. You probably do not want to use it.
95 -S Do not display the median and standard deviation values, nor
97 display the warning/error messages when the average and median
98 are more than one or two times the standard deviation apart. And
99 default to the min/avg/max values. (legacy support).
100 -t timelimit
102 Maximum number of seconds to spend for benchmarking. This
103 implies a -n 50000 internally. Use this to benchmark the server
104 within a fixed total amount of time. Per default there is no
105 timelimit.
106 -T content-type
108 Content-type header to use for POST data.
109 -v verbosity
111 Set verbosity level - 4 and above prints information on headers,
112 3 and above prints response codes (404, 200, etc.), 2 and above
113 prints warnings and info.
114 -V Display version number and exit.
116 -w Print out results in HTML tables. Default table is two columns
118 wide, with a white background.
119 -x <table>-attributes
121 String to use as attributes for <table>. Attributes are inserted
122 <table here >.
123 -X proxy[:port]
125 Use a proxy server for the requests.
126 -y <tr>-attributes
128 String to use as attributes for <tr>.
129 -z <td>-attributes
131 String to use as attributes for <td>.
132
135 There are various statically declared buffers of fixed length. Combined
136 with the lazy parsing of the command line arguments, the response head‐
137 ers from the server and other external inputs, this might bite you.
138 It does not implement HTTP/1.x fully; only accepts some 'expected'
141 forms of responses. The rather heavy use of strstr(3) shows up top in
142 profile, which might indicate a performance problem; i.e., you would
143 measure the ab performance rather than the server's.
144Apache HTTP Server 2004-11-14 AB(8)