.\" XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX .\" DO NOT EDIT! Generated from XML source. .\" XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX .de Sh \" Subsection .br .if t .Sp .ne 5 .PP \fB\\$1\fR .PP .. .de Sp \" Vertical space (when we can't use .PP) .if t .sp .5v .if n .sp .. .de Ip \" List item .br .ie \\n(.$>=3 .ne \\$3 .el .ne 3 .IP "\\$1" \\$2 .. .TH "AB" 8 "2004-11-14" "Apache HTTP Server" "ab" .SH NAME ab \- Apache HTTP server benchmarking tool .SH "SYNOPSIS" .PP \fBab\fR [ -\fBA\fR \fIauth-username\fR:\fIpassword\fR ] [ -\fBc\fR \fIconcurrency\fR ] [ -\fBC\fR \fIcookie-name\fR=\fIvalue\fR ] [ -\fBd\fR ] [ -\fBe\fR \fIcsv-file\fR ] [ -\fBg\fR \fIgnuplot-file\fR ] [ -\fBh\fR ] [ -\fBH\fR \fIcustom-header\fR ] [ -\fBi\fR ] [ -\fBk\fR ] [ -\fBn\fR \fIrequests\fR ] [ -\fBp\fR \fIPOST-file\fR ] [ -\fBP\fR \fIproxy-auth-username\fR:\fIpassword\fR ] [ -\fBq\fR ] [ -\fBs\fR ] [ -\fBS\fR ] [ -\fBt\fR \fItimelimit\fR ] [ -\fBT\fR \fIcontent-type\fR ] [ -\fBv\fR \fIverbosity\fR] [ -\fBV\fR ] [ -\fBw\fR ] [ -\fBx\fR \fI-attributes\fR ] [ -\fBX\fR \fIproxy\fR[:\fIport\fR] ] [ -\fBy\fR \fI-attributes\fR ] [ -\fBz\fR \fI
-attributes\fR ] [http://]\fIhostname\fR[:\fIport\fR]/\fIpath\fR .SH "SUMMARY" .PP 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\&. .SH "OPTIONS" .TP -A \fIauth-username\fR:\fIpassword\fR 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 (\fIi\&.e\&.\fR, has sent an 401 authentication needed)\&. .TP -c \fIconcurrency\fR Number of multiple requests to perform at a time\&. Default is one request at a time\&. .TP -C \fIcookie-name\fR=\fIvalue\fR Add a Cookie: line to the request\&. The argument is typically in the form of a \fIname\fR=\fIvalue\fR pair\&. This field is repeatable\&. .TP -d Do not display the "percentage served within XX [ms] table"\&. (legacy support)\&. .TP -e \fIcsv-file\fR 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'\&. .TP -g \fIgnuplot-file\fR 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\&. .TP -h Display usage information\&. .TP -H \fIcustom-header\fR 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 (\fIi\&.e\&.\fR, "Accept-Encoding: zip/zop;8bit")\&. .TP -i Do HEAD requests instead of GET\&. .TP -k Enable the HTTP KeepAlive feature, \fIi\&.e\&.\fR, perform multiple requests within one HTTP session\&. Default is no KeepAlive\&. .TP -n \fIrequests\fR 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\&. .TP -p \fIPOST-file\fR File containing data to POST\&. .TP -P \fIproxy-auth-username\fR:\fIpassword\fR 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 (\fIi\&.e\&.\fR, has sent an 407 proxy authentication needed)\&. .TP -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\&. .TP -s When compiled in (ab -h will show you) use the SSL protected https rather than the http protocol\&. This feature is experimental and \fIvery\fR rudimentary\&. You probably do not want to use it\&. .TP -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)\&. .TP -t \fItimelimit\fR 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\&. .TP -T \fIcontent-type\fR Content-type header to use for POST data\&. .TP -v \fIverbosity\fR 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\&. .TP -V Display version number and exit\&. .TP -w Print out results in HTML tables\&. Default table is two columns wide, with a white background\&. .TP -x \fI-attributes\fR String to use as attributes for
\&. Attributes are inserted
\&. .TP -X \fIproxy\fR[:\fIport\fR] Use a proxy server for the requests\&. .TP -y \fI-attributes\fR String to use as attributes for \&. .TP -z \fI
-attributes\fR String to use as attributes for \&. .SH "BUGS" .PP 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\&. .PP 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; \fIi\&.e\&.\fR, you would measure the ab performance rather than the server's\&.