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 ] [ -E
12 client-certificate file ] [ -f protocol ] [ -g gnuplot-file ] [ -h ] [
13 -H custom-header ] [ -i ] [ -k ] [ -l ] [ -m HTTP-method ] [ -n
14 requests ] [ -p POST-file ] [ -P proxy-auth-username:password ] [ -q ]
15 [ -r ] [ -s timeout ] [ -S ] [ -t timelimit ] [ -T content-type ] [ -u
16 PUT-file ] [ -v verbosity] [ -V ] [ -w ] [ -x <table>-attributes ] [ -X
17 proxy[:port] ] [ -y <tr>-attributes ] [ -z <td>-attributes ] [ -Z
18 ciphersuite ] [http[s]://]hostname[:port]/path
19
23 ab is a tool for benchmarking your Apache Hypertext Transfer Protocol
24 (HTTP) server. It is designed to give you an impression of how your
25 current Apache installation performs. This especially shows you how
26 many requests per second your Apache installation is capable of serv‐
27 ing.
28
32 -A auth-username:password
33 Supply BASIC Authentication credentials to the server. The user‐
34 name and password are separated by a single : and sent on the
35 wire base64 encoded. The string is sent regardless of whether
36 the server needs it (i.e., has sent an 401 authentication
37 needed).
38 -b windowsize
40 Size of TCP send/receive buffer, in bytes.
41 -B local-address
43 Address to bind to when making outgoing connections.
44 -c concurrency
46 Number of multiple requests to perform at a time. Default is one
47 request at a time.
48 -C cookie-name=value
50 Add a Cookie: line to the request. The argument is typically in
51 the form of a name=value pair. This field is repeatable.
52 -d Do not display the "percentage served within XX [ms] table".
54 (legacy support).
55 -e csv-file
57 Write a Comma separated value (CSV) file which contains for each
58 percentage (from 1% to 100%) the time (in milliseconds) it took
59 to serve that percentage of the requests. This is usually more
60 useful than the 'gnuplot' file; as the results are already
61 'binned'.
62 -E client-certificate-file
64 When connecting to an SSL website, use the provided client cer‐
65 tificate in PEM format to authenticate with the server. The file
66 is expected to contain the client certificate, followed by
67 intermediate certificates, followed by the private key. Avail‐
68 able in 2.4.36 and later.
69 -f protocol
71 Specify SSL/TLS protocol (SSL2, SSL3, TLS1, TLS1.1, TLS1.2, or
72 ALL). TLS1.1 and TLS1.2 support available in 2.4.4 and later.
73 -g gnuplot-file
75 Write all measured values out as a 'gnuplot' or TSV (Tab sepa‐
76 rate values) file. This file can easily be imported into pack‐
77 ages like Gnuplot, IDL, Mathematica, Igor or even Excel. The
78 labels are on the first line of the file.
79 -h Display usage information.
81 -H custom-header
83 Append extra headers to the request. The argument is typically
84 in the form of a valid header line, containing a colon-separated
85 field-value pair (i.e., "Accept-Encoding: zip/zop;8bit").
86 -i Do HEAD requests instead of GET.
88 -k Enable the HTTP KeepAlive feature, i.e., perform multiple
90 requests within one HTTP session. Default is no KeepAlive.
91 -l Do not report errors if the length of the responses is not con‐
93 stant. This can be useful for dynamic pages. Available in 2.4.7
94 and later.
95 -m HTTP-method
97 Custom HTTP method for the requests. Available in 2.4.10 and
98 later.
99 -n requests
101 Number of requests to perform for the benchmarking session. The
102 default is to just perform a single request which usually leads
103 to non-representative benchmarking results.
104 -p POST-file
106 File containing data to POST. Remember to also set -T.
107 -P proxy-auth-username:password
109 Supply BASIC Authentication credentials to a proxy en-route. The
110 username and password are separated by a single : and sent on
111 the wire base64 encoded. The string is sent regardless of
112 whether the proxy needs it (i.e., has sent an 407 proxy authen‐
113 tication needed).
114 -q When processing more than 150 requests, ab outputs a progress
116 count on stderr every 10% or 100 requests or so. The -q flag
117 will suppress these messages.
118 -r Don't exit on socket receive errors.
120 -s timeout
122 Maximum number of seconds to wait before the socket times out.
123 Default is 30 seconds. Available in 2.4.4 and later.
124 -S Do not display the median and standard deviation values, nor
126 display the warning/error messages when the average and median
127 are more than one or two times the standard deviation apart. And
128 default to the min/avg/max values. (legacy support).
129 -t timelimit
131 Maximum number of seconds to spend for benchmarking. This
132 implies a -n 50000 internally. Use this to benchmark the server
133 within a fixed total amount of time. Per default there is no
134 timelimit.
135 -T content-type
137 Content-type header to use for POST/PUT data, eg. application/x-
138 www-form-urlencoded. Default is text/plain.
139 -u PUT-file
141 File containing data to PUT. Remember to also set -T.
142 -v verbosity
144 Set verbosity level - 4 and above prints information on headers,
145 3 and above prints response codes (404, 200, etc.), 2 and above
146 prints warnings and info.
147 -V Display version number and exit.
149 -w Print out results in HTML tables. Default table is two columns
151 wide, with a white background.
152 -x <table>-attributes
154 String to use as attributes for <table>. Attributes are inserted
155 <table here >.
156 -X proxy[:port]
158 Use a proxy server for the requests.
159 -y <tr>-attributes
161 String to use as attributes for <tr>.
162 -z <td>-attributes
164 String to use as attributes for <td>.
165 -Z ciphersuite
167 Specify SSL/TLS cipher suite (See openssl ciphers)
168
171 The following list describes the values returned by ab:
172 Server Software
176 The value, if any, returned in the server HTTP header of the
177 first successful response. This includes all characters in the
178 header from beginning to the point a character with decimal
179 value of 32 (most notably: a space or CR/LF) is detected.
180 Server Hostname
182 The DNS or IP address given on the command line
183 Server Port
185 The port to which ab is connecting. If no port is given on the
186 command line, this will default to 80 for http and 443 for
187 https.
188 SSL/TLS Protocol
190 The protocol parameters negotiated between the client and
191 server. This will only be printed if SSL is used.
192 Document Path
194 The request URI parsed from the command line string.
195 Document Length
197 This is the size in bytes of the first successfully returned
198 document. If the document length changes during testing, the
199 response is considered an error.
200 Concurrency Level
202 The number of concurrent clients used during the test
203 Time taken for tests
205 This is the time taken from the moment the first socket connec‐
206 tion is created to the moment the last response is received
207 Complete requests
209 The number of successful responses received
210 Failed requests
212 The number of requests that were considered a failure. If the
213 number is greater than zero, another line will be printed show‐
214 ing the number of requests that failed due to connecting, read‐
215 ing, incorrect content length, or exceptions.
216 Write errors
218 The number of errors that failed during write (broken pipe).
219 Non-2xx responses
221 The number of responses that were not in the 200 series of
222 response codes. If all responses were 200, this field is not
223 printed.
224 Keep-Alive requests
226 The number of connections that resulted in Keep-Alive requests
227 Total body sent
229 If configured to send data as part of the test, this is the
230 total number of bytes sent during the tests. This field is omit‐
231 ted if the test did not include a body to send.
232 Total transferred
234 The total number of bytes received from the server. This number
235 is essentially the number of bytes sent over the wire.
236 HTML transferred
238 The total number of document bytes received from the server.
239 This number excludes bytes received in HTTP headers
240 Requests per second
242 This is the number of requests per second. This value is the
243 result of dividing the number of requests by the total time
244 taken
245 Time per request
247 The average time spent per request. The first value is calcu‐
248 lated with the formula concurrency * timetaken * 1000 / done
249 while the second value is calculated with the formula timetaken
250 * 1000 / done
251 Transfer rate
253 The rate of transfer as calculated by the formula totalread /
254 1024 / timetaken
255
258 There are various statically declared buffers of fixed length. Combined
259 with the lazy parsing of the command line arguments, the response head‐
260 ers from the server and other external inputs, this might bite you.
261 It does not implement HTTP/1.x fully; only accepts some 'expected'
264 forms of responses. The rather heavy use of strstr(3) shows up top in
265 profile, which might indicate a performance problem; i.e., you would
266 measure the ab performance rather than the server's.
267Apache HTTP Server 2018-10-10 AB(1)