AB(8)abAB(8)NAMEab - Apache HTTP server benchmarking tool
SYNOPSISab [ -A auth-username:password ] [ -c concurrency ] [ -C
cookie-name=value ] [ -d ] [ -e csv-file ] [ -g gnuplot-
file ] [ -h ] [ -H custom-header ] [ -i ] [ -k ] [ -n
requests ] [ -p POST-file ] [ -P proxy-auth-username:pass-
word ] [ -q ] [ -s ] [ -S ] [ -t timelimit ] [ -T content-
type ] [ -v verbosity] [ -V ] [ -w ] [ -x
<table>-attributes ] [ -X proxy[:port] ] [ -y
<tr>-attributes ] [ -z <td>-attributes ] [http://]host-
name[:port]/path
SUMMARYab is a tool for benchmarking your Apache Hypertext Trans-
fer Protocol (HTTP) server. It is designed to give you an
impression of how your current Apache installation per-
forms. 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 regard-
less of whether the server needs it (i.e.,
has sent an 401 authentication needed).
-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 argu-
ment 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 milli seconds) it took
to serve that percentage of the requests.
This is usually more useful than the 'gnu-
plot' file; as the results are already
'binned'.
-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
Excell. 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 bench-
marking session. The default is to just per-
form a single request which usually leads to
non-representative benchmarking results.
-p POST-file
File containing data to POST.
-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 sup-
press these messages.
-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 devi-
ation 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 inter-
nally. 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 data.
-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>.
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 per-
formance rather than the server's.
Apache HTTP Server 2003-04-29 AB(8)
