Provided by: apache2-utils_2.4.62-3ubuntu1_amd64 
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 requests ] [ -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 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.
-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 certificate in PEM
format to authenticate with the server. The file is expected to contain the client
certificate, followed by intermediate 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 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.
-l Do not report errors if the length of the responses is not constant. 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 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 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 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 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 response 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 connection 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 showing the number of requests that failed
due to connecting, reading, 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 response 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 total 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 result of dividing the
number of requests by the total time taken
Time per request
The average time spent per request. The first value is calculated 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 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.