AB(1)                                 ab                                 AB(1)



NAME
       ab - Apache HTTP server benchmarking tool


SYNOPSIS
       ab [ -A auth-username:password ] [ -b windowsize ] [ -c concurrency ] [
       -C cookie-name=value ] [ -d ] [ -e csv-file ] [ -f protocol ] [ -g
       gnuplot-file ] [ -h ] [ -H custom-header ] [ -i ] [ -k ] [ -n requests
       ] [ -p POST-file ] [ -P proxy-auth-username:password ] [ -q ] [ -r ] [
       -s ] [ -S ] [ -t timelimit ] [ -T content-type ] [ -u PUT-file ] [ -v
       verbosity] [ -V ] [ -w ] [ -x <table>-attributes ] [ -X proxy[:port] ]
       [ -y <tr>-attributes ] [ -z <td>-attributes ] [ -Z ciphersuite ]
       [http[s]://]hostname[:port]/path



SUMMARY
       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
       -A auth-username:password
              Supply BASIC Authentication credentials to the server. The
              username and password are separated by a single : and sent on
              the wire base64 encoded. The string is sent regardless of
              whether the server needs it (i.e., has sent an 401
              authentication needed).

       -b windowsize
              Size of TCP send/receive buffer, in bytes.

       -c concurrency
              Number of multiple requests to perform at a time. Default is one
              request at a time.

       -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.

       -d     Do not display the "percentage served within XX [ms] table".
              (legacy support).

       -e csv-file
              Write a Comma separated value (CSV) file which contains for each
              percentage (from 1% to 100%) the time (in milliseconds) it took
              to serve that percentage of the requests. This is usually more
              useful than the 'gnuplot' file; as the results are already
              'binned'.

       -f protocol
              Specify SSL/TLS protocol (SSL2, SSL3, TLS1, or ALL).

       -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 Excel. The
              labels are on the first line of the file.

       -h     Display usage information.

       -H custom-header
              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").

       -i     Do HEAD requests instead of GET.

       -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.

       -p POST-file
              File containing data to POST. Remember to also set -T.

       -P proxy-auth-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 base64 encoded. The string is sent regardless of
              whether the proxy needs it (i.e., has sent an 407 proxy
              authentication needed).

       -q     When processing more than 150 requests, ab outputs a progress
              count on stderr every 10% or 100 requests or so. The -q flag
              will suppress these messages.

       -r     Don't exit on socket receive errors.

       -s     When compiled in (ab -h will show you) use the SSL protected
              https rather than the http protocol. This feature is
              experimental and very rudimentary. You probably do not want to
              use it.

       -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).

       -t timelimit
              Maximum number of seconds to spend for benchmarking. This
              implies a -n 50000 internally. Use this to benchmark the server
              within a fixed total amount of time. Per default there is no
              timelimit.

       -T content-type
              Content-type header to use for POST/PUT data, eg. application/x-
              www-form-urlencoded. Default: text/plain.

       -u PUT-file
              File containing data to PUT. Remember to also set -T.

       -v verbosity
              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.

       -V     Display version number and exit.

       -w     Print out results in HTML tables. Default table is two columns
              wide, with a white background.

       -x <table>-attributes
              String to use as attributes for <table>. Attributes are inserted
              <table here >.

       -X proxy[:port]
              Use a proxy server for the requests.

       -y <tr>-attributes
              String to use as attributes for <tr>.

       -z <td>-attributes
              String to use as attributes for <td>.

       -Z ciphersuite
              Specify SSL/TLS cipher suite (See openssl ciphers).


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.




Apache HTTP Server                2012-01-10                             AB(1)
