AB(1)



AB(1)                                 ab                                 AB(1)

NAME
       ab - Apache HTTP server benchmarking tool

SYNOPSIS
       ab [ -A auth-username:password ] [ -b windowsize ] [ -B local-address ]
       [ -c concurrency ] [ -C cookie-name=value ] [ -d ] [ -e csv-file ] [ -E
       client-certificate  file ] [ -f protocol ] [ -g gnuplot-file ] [ -h ] [
       -H custom-header ] [ -i ] [ -k ] [ -l ] [ -m HTTP-method  ]  [  -n  re-
       quests  ] [ -p POST-file ] [ -P proxy-auth-username:password ] [ -q ] [
       -r ] [ -s timeout ] [ -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  ci-
       phersuite ] [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  serv-
       ing.

OPTIONS
       -A auth-username:password
              Supply BASIC Authentication credentials to the server. The user-
              name 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.

       -B local-address
              Address to bind to when making outgoing connections.

       -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'.

       -E client-certificate-file
              When connecting to an SSL website, use the provided client  cer-
              tificate in PEM format to authenticate with the server. The file
              is expected to contain the client certificate, followed  by  in-
              termediate  certificates, followed by the private key. Available
              in 2.4.36 and later.

       -f protocol
              Specify SSL/TLS protocol (SSL2, SSL3, TLS1, TLS1.1,  TLS1.2,  or
              ALL). TLS1.1 and TLS1.2 support available in 2.4.4 and later.

       -g gnuplot-file
              Write  all  measured values out as a 'gnuplot' or TSV (Tab sepa-
              rate values) file. This file can easily be imported  into  pack-
              ages like Gnuplot, IDL, Mathematica, Igor or even Excel. The la-
              bels 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  re-
              quests within one HTTP session. Default is no KeepAlive.

       -l     Do  not report errors if the length of the responses is not con-
              stant. This can be useful for dynamic pages. Available in  2.4.7
              and later.

       -m HTTP-method
              Custom  HTTP  method  for  the requests. Available in 2.4.10 and
              later.

       -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 authen-
              tication 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 timeout
              Maximum number of seconds to wait before the socket  times  out.
              Default is 30 seconds. Available in 2.4.4 and later.

       -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  im-
              plies  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 is 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)

OUTPUT
       The following list describes the values returned by ab:

       Server Software
              The value, if any, returned in the server  HTTP  header  of  the
              first  successful  response. This includes all characters in the
              header from beginning to the  point  a  character  with  decimal
              value of 32 (most notably: a space or CR/LF) is detected.

       Server Hostname
              The DNS or IP address given on the command line

       Server Port
              The  port  to which ab is connecting. If no port is given on the
              command line, this will default to  80  for  http  and  443  for
              https.

       SSL/TLS Protocol
              The  protocol  parameters  negotiated  between  the  client  and
              server. This will only be printed if SSL is used.

       Document Path
              The request URI parsed from the command line string.

       Document Length
              This is the size in bytes of  the  first  successfully  returned
              document. If the document length changes during testing, the re-
              sponse is considered an error.

       Concurrency Level
              The number of concurrent clients used during the test

       Time taken for tests
              This is the time taken from the moment the first socket  connec-
              tion is created to the moment the last response is received

       Complete requests
              The number of successful responses received

       Failed requests
              The  number  of  requests that were considered a failure. If the
              number is greater than zero, another line will be printed  show-
              ing  the number of requests that failed due to connecting, read-
              ing, incorrect content length, or exceptions.

       Write errors
              The number of errors that failed during write (broken pipe).

       Non-2xx responses
              The number of responses that were not in the 200 series  of  re-
              sponse  codes.  If  all  responses  were  200, this field is not
              printed.

       Keep-Alive requests
              The number of connections that resulted in Keep-Alive requests

       Total body sent
              If configured to send data as part of the test, this is the  to-
              tal number of bytes sent during the tests. This field is omitted
              if the test did not include a body to send.

       Total transferred
              The total number of bytes received from the server. This  number
              is essentially the number of bytes sent over the wire.

       HTML transferred
              The  total  number  of  document bytes received from the server.
              This number excludes bytes received in HTTP headers

       Requests per second
              This is the number of requests per second. This value is the re-
              sult of dividing the number of requests by the total time taken

       Time per request
              The  average  time  spent per request. The first value is calcu-
              lated with the formula concurrency * timetaken  *  1000  /  done
              while  the second value is calculated with the formula timetaken
              * 1000 / done

       Transfer rate
              The rate of transfer as calculated by the  formula  totalread  /
              1024 / timetaken

BUGS
       There are various statically declared buffers of fixed length. Combined
       with the lazy parsing of the command line arguments, the response head-
       ers 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                2018-10-10                             AB(1)

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