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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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