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 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 impres‐
       sion 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  au‐
              thentication 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 repeat‐
              able.

       -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  millisec‐
              onds)  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 pri‐
              vate 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  re‐
              ceived

       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  excep‐
              tions.

       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.

Apache HTTP Server                                           2018-10-10                                                       AB(1)

Usage: ab [options] [http[s]://]hostname[:port]/path
Options are:
    -n requests     Number of requests to perform
    -c concurrency  Number of multiple requests to make at a time
    -t timelimit    Seconds to max. to spend on benchmarking
                    This implies -n 50000
    -s timeout      Seconds to max. wait for each response
                    Default is 30 seconds
    -b windowsize   Size of TCP send/receive buffer, in bytes
    -B address      Address to bind to when making outgoing connections
    -p postfile     File containing data to POST. Remember also to set -T
    -u putfile      File containing data to PUT. Remember also to set -T
    -T content-type Content-type header to use for POST/PUT data, eg.
                    'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'
                    Default is 'text/plain'
    -v verbosity    How much troubleshooting info to print
    -w              Print out results in HTML tables
    -i              Use HEAD instead of GET
    -x attributes   String to insert as table attributes
    -y attributes   String to insert as tr attributes
    -z attributes   String to insert as td or th attributes
    -C attribute    Add cookie, eg. 'Apache=1234'. (repeatable)
    -H attribute    Add Arbitrary header line, eg. 'Accept-Encoding: gzip'
                    Inserted after all normal header lines. (repeatable)
    -A attribute    Add Basic WWW Authentication, the attributes
                    are a colon separated username and password.
    -P attribute    Add Basic Proxy Authentication, the attributes
                    are a colon separated username and password.
    -X proxy:port   Proxyserver and port number to use
    -V              Print version number and exit
    -k              Use HTTP KeepAlive feature
    -d              Do not show percentiles served table.
    -S              Do not show confidence estimators and warnings.
    -q              Do not show progress when doing more than 150 requests
    -l              Accept variable document length (use this for dynamic pages)
    -g filename     Output collected data to gnuplot format file.
    -e filename     Output CSV file with percentages served
    -r              Don't exit on socket receive errors.
    -m method       Method name
    -h              Display usage information (this message)
    -I              Disable TLS Server Name Indication (SNI) extension
    -Z ciphersuite  Specify SSL/TLS cipher suite (See openssl ciphers)
    -f protocol     Specify SSL/TLS protocol
                    (SSL2, TLS1, TLS1.1, TLS1.2 or ALL)
    -E certfile     Specify optional client certificate chain and private key