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 ] [ -b windowsize ] [ -c concurrency ] [
11 -C cookie-name=value ] [ -d ] [ -e csv-file ] [ -f protocol ] [ -g gnu‐
12 plot-file ] [ -h ] [ -H custom-header ] [ -i ] [ -k ] [ -n requests ] [
13 -p POST-file ] [ -P proxy-auth-username:password ] [ -q ] [ -r ] [ -s ]
14 [ -S ] [ -t timelimit ] [ -T content-type ] [ -u PUT-file ] [ -v ver‐
15 bosity] [ -V ] [ -w ] [ -x <table>-attributes ] [ -X proxy[:port] ] [
16 -y <tr>-attributes ] [ -z <td>-attributes ] [ -Z ciphersuite ]
17 [http[s]://]hostname[:port]/path
18
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.
27
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 -c concurrency
42 Number of multiple requests to perform at a time. Default is one
43 request at a time.
44 -C cookie-name=value
46 Add a Cookie: line to the request. The argument is typically in
47 the form of a name=value pair. This field is repeatable.
48 -d Do not display the "percentage served within XX [ms] table".
50 (legacy support).
51 -e csv-file
53 Write a Comma separated value (CSV) file which contains for each
54 percentage (from 1% to 100%) the time (in milliseconds) it took
55 to serve that percentage of the requests. This is usually more
56 useful than the 'gnuplot' file; as the results are already
57 'binned'.
58 -f protocol
60 Specify SSL/TLS protocol (SSL2, SSL3, TLS1, or ALL).
61 -g gnuplot-file
63 Write all measured values out as a 'gnuplot' or TSV (Tab sepa‐
64 rate values) file. This file can easily be imported into pack‐
65 ages like Gnuplot, IDL, Mathematica, Igor or even Excel. The
66 labels are on the first line of the file.
67 -h Display usage information.
69 -H custom-header
71 Append extra headers to the request. The argument is typically
72 in the form of a valid header line, containing a colon-separated
73 field-value pair (i.e., "Accept-Encoding: zip/zop;8bit").
74 -i Do HEAD requests instead of GET.
76 -k Enable the HTTP KeepAlive feature, i.e., perform multiple
78 requests within one HTTP session. Default is no KeepAlive.
79 -n requests
81 Number of requests to perform for the benchmarking session. The
82 default is to just perform a single request which usually leads
83 to non-representative benchmarking results.
84 -p POST-file
86 File containing data to POST. Remember to also set -T.
87 -P proxy-auth-username:password
89 Supply BASIC Authentication credentials to a proxy en-route. The
90 username and password are separated by a single : and sent on
91 the wire base64 encoded. The string is sent regardless of
92 whether the proxy needs it (i.e., has sent an 407 proxy authen‐
93 tication needed).
94 -q When processing more than 150 requests, ab outputs a progress
96 count on stderr every 10% or 100 requests or so. The -q flag
97 will suppress these messages.
98 -r Don't exit on socket receive errors.
100 -s When compiled in (ab -h will show you) use the SSL protected
102 https rather than the http protocol. This feature is experimen‐
103 tal and very rudimentary. You probably do not want to use it.
104 -S Do not display the median and standard deviation values, nor
106 display the warning/error messages when the average and median
107 are more than one or two times the standard deviation apart. And
108 default to the min/avg/max values. (legacy support).
109 -t timelimit
111 Maximum number of seconds to spend for benchmarking. This
112 implies a -n 50000 internally. Use this to benchmark the server
113 within a fixed total amount of time. Per default there is no
114 timelimit.
115 -T content-type
117 Content-type header to use for POST/PUT data, eg. application/x-
118 www-form-urlencoded. Default: text/plain.
119 -u PUT-file
121 File containing data to PUT. Remember to also set -T.
122 -v verbosity
124 Set verbosity level - 4 and above prints information on headers,
125 3 and above prints response codes (404, 200, etc.), 2 and above
126 prints warnings and info.
127 -V Display version number and exit.
129 -w Print out results in HTML tables. Default table is two columns
131 wide, with a white background.
132 -x <table>-attributes
134 String to use as attributes for <table>. Attributes are inserted
135 <table here >.
136 -X proxy[:port]
138 Use a proxy server for the requests.
139 -y <tr>-attributes
141 String to use as attributes for <tr>.
142 -z <td>-attributes
144 String to use as attributes for <td>.
145 -Z ciphersuite
147 Specify SSL/TLS cipher suite (See openssl ciphers).
148
151 There are various statically declared buffers of fixed length. Combined
152 with the lazy parsing of the command line arguments, the response head‐
153 ers from the server and other external inputs, this might bite you.
154 It does not implement HTTP/1.x fully; only accepts some 'expected'
157 forms of responses. The rather heavy use of strstr(3) shows up top in
158 profile, which might indicate a performance problem; i.e., you would
159 measure the ab performance rather than the server's.
160Apache HTTP Server 2009-09-14 AB(8)