1AB(1) ab AB(1)
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6 ab - Apache HTTP server benchmarking tool
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10 ab [ -A auth-username:password ] [ -b windowsize ] [ -B local-address ]
11 [ -c concurrency ] [ -C cookie-name=value ] [ -d ] [ -e csv-file ] [ -f
12 protocol ] [ -g gnuplot-file ] [ -h ] [ -H custom-header ] [ -i ] [ -k
13 ] [ -n requests ] [ -p POST-file ] [ -P proxy-auth-username:password ]
14 [ -q ] [ -r ] [ -s timeout ] [ -S ] [ -t timelimit ] [ -T content-type
15 ] [ -u PUT-file ] [ -v verbosity] [ -V ] [ -w ] [ -x <table>-attributes
16 ] [ -X proxy[:port] ] [ -y <tr>-attributes ] [ -z <td>-attributes ] [
17 -Z ciphersuite ] [http[s]://]hostname[:port]/path
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22 ab is a tool for benchmarking your Apache Hypertext Transfer Protocol
23 (HTTP) server. It is designed to give you an impression of how your
24 current Apache installation performs. This especially shows you how
25 many requests per second your Apache installation is capable of serv‐
26 ing.
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31 -A auth-username:password
32 Supply BASIC Authentication credentials to the server. The user‐
33 name and password are separated by a single : and sent on the
34 wire base64 encoded. The string is sent regardless of whether
35 the server needs it (i.e., has sent an 401 authentication
36 needed).
37 -b windowsize
39 Size of TCP send/receive buffer, in bytes.
40 -B local-address
42 Address to bind to when making outgoing connections.
43 -c concurrency
45 Number of multiple requests to perform at a time. Default is one
46 request at a time.
47 -C cookie-name=value
49 Add a Cookie: line to the request. The argument is typically in
50 the form of a name=value pair. This field is repeatable.
51 -d Do not display the "percentage served within XX [ms] table".
53 (legacy support).
54 -e csv-file
56 Write a Comma separated value (CSV) file which contains for each
57 percentage (from 1% to 100%) the time (in milliseconds) it took
58 to serve that percentage of the requests. This is usually more
59 useful than the 'gnuplot' file; as the results are already
60 'binned'.
61 -f protocol
63 Specify SSL/TLS protocol (SSL2, SSL3, TLS1, or ALL).
64 -g gnuplot-file
66 Write all measured values out as a 'gnuplot' or TSV (Tab sepa‐
67 rate values) file. This file can easily be imported into pack‐
68 ages like Gnuplot, IDL, Mathematica, Igor or even Excel. The
69 labels are on the first line of the file.
70 -h Display usage information.
72 -H custom-header
74 Append extra headers to the request. The argument is typically
75 in the form of a valid header line, containing a colon-separated
76 field-value pair (i.e., "Accept-Encoding: zip/zop;8bit").
77 -i Do HEAD requests instead of GET.
79 -k Enable the HTTP KeepAlive feature, i.e., perform multiple
81 requests within one HTTP session. Default is no KeepAlive.
82 -n requests
84 Number of requests to perform for the benchmarking session. The
85 default is to just perform a single request which usually leads
86 to non-representative benchmarking results.
87 -p POST-file
89 File containing data to POST. Remember to also set -T.
90 -P proxy-auth-username:password
92 Supply BASIC Authentication credentials to a proxy en-route. The
93 username and password are separated by a single : and sent on
94 the wire base64 encoded. The string is sent regardless of
95 whether the proxy needs it (i.e., has sent an 407 proxy authen‐
96 tication needed).
97 -q When processing more than 150 requests, ab outputs a progress
99 count on stderr every 10% or 100 requests or so. The -q flag
100 will suppress these messages.
101 -r Don't exit on socket receive errors.
103 -s timeout
105 Maximum number of seconds to wait before the socket times out.
106 Default is 30 seconds.
107 -S Do not display the median and standard deviation values, nor
109 display the warning/error messages when the average and median
110 are more than one or two times the standard deviation apart. And
111 default to the min/avg/max values. (legacy support).
112 -t timelimit
114 Maximum number of seconds to spend for benchmarking. This
115 implies a -n 50000 internally. Use this to benchmark the server
116 within a fixed total amount of time. Per default there is no
117 timelimit.
118 -T content-type
120 Content-type header to use for POST/PUT data, eg. application/x-
121 www-form-urlencoded. Default is text/plain.
122 -u PUT-file
124 File containing data to PUT. Remember to also set -T.
125 -v verbosity
127 Set verbosity level - 4 and above prints information on headers,
128 3 and above prints response codes (404, 200, etc.), 2 and above
129 prints warnings and info.
130 -V Display version number and exit.
132 -w Print out results in HTML tables. Default table is two columns
134 wide, with a white background.
135 -x <table>-attributes
137 String to use as attributes for <table>. Attributes are inserted
138 <table here >.
139 -X proxy[:port]
141 Use a proxy server for the requests.
142 -y <tr>-attributes
144 String to use as attributes for <tr>.
145 -z <td>-attributes
147 String to use as attributes for <td>.
148 -Z ciphersuite
150 Specify SSL/TLS cipher suite (See openssl ciphers)
151
154 The following list describes the values returned by ab:
155 Server Software
159 The value, if any, returned in the server HTTP header of the
160 first successful response. This includes all characters in the
161 header from beginning to the point a character with decimal
162 value of 32 (most notably: a space or CR/LF) is detected.
163 Server Hostname
165 The DNS or IP address given on the command line
166 Server Port
168 The port to which ab is connecting. If no port is given on the
169 command line, this will default to 80 for http and 443 for
170 https.
171 SSL/TLS Protocol
173 The protocol parameters negotiated between the client and
174 server. This will only be printed if SSL is used.
175 Document Path
177 The request URI parsed from the command line string.
178 Document Length
180 This is the size in bytes of the first successfully returned
181 document. If the document length changes during testing, the
182 response is considered an error.
183 Concurrency Level
185 The number of concurrent clients used during the test
186 Time taken for tests
188 This is the time taken from the moment the first socket connec‐
189 tion is created to the moment the last response is received
190 Complete requests
192 The number of successful responses received
193 Failed requests
195 The number of requests that were considered a failure. If the
196 number is greater than zero, another line will be printed show‐
197 ing the number of requests that failed due to connecting, read‐
198 ing, incorrect content length, or exceptions.
199 Write errors
201 The number of errors that failed during write (broken pipe).
202 Non-2xx responses
204 The number of responses that were not in the 200 series of
205 response codes. If all responses were 200, this field is not
206 printed.
207 Keep-Alive requests
209 The number of connections that resulted in Keep-Alive requests
210 Total body sent
212 If configured to send data as part of the test, this is the
213 total number of bytes sent during the tests. This field is omit‐
214 ted if the test did not include a body to send.
215 Total transferred
217 The total number of bytes received from the server. This number
218 is essentially the number of bytes sent over the wire.
219 HTML transferred
221 The total number of document bytes received from the server.
222 This number excludes bytes received in HTTP headers
223 Requests per second
225 This is the number of requests per second. This value is the
226 result of dividing the number of requests by the total time
227 taken
228 Time per request
230 The average time spent per request. The first value is calcu‐
231 lated with the formula concurrency * timetaken * 1000 / done
232 while the second value is calculated with the formula timetaken
233 * 1000 / done
234 Transfer rate
236 The rate of transfer as calculated by the formula totalread /
237 1024 / timetaken
238
241 There are various statically declared buffers of fixed length. Combined
242 with the lazy parsing of the command line arguments, the response head‐
243 ers from the server and other external inputs, this might bite you.
244 It does not implement HTTP/1.x fully; only accepts some 'expected'
247 forms of responses. The rather heavy use of strstr(3) shows up top in
248 profile, which might indicate a performance problem; i.e., you would
249 measure the ab performance rather than the server's.
250Apache HTTP Server 2013-01-09 AB(1)