This manual page is for Mac OS X version 10.6.3

Reading manual pages

AB(8)                                                ab                                                AB(8)



NAME
       ab - Apache HTTP server benchmarking tool


SYNOPSIS
       ab [ -A auth-username:password ] [ -b windowsize ] [ -c concurrency ] [ -C cookie-name=value ] [ -d ]
       [ -e csv-file ] [ -f protocol ] [ -g gnuplot-file ] [ -h ] [ -H custom-header ] [ -i ] [ -k  ]  [  -n
       requests  ]  [  -p  POST-file  ] [ -P proxy-auth-username:password ] [ -q ] [ -r ] [ -s ] [ -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.

       -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'.

       -f protocol
              Specify SSL/TLS protocol (SSL2, SSL3, TLS1, or ALL).

       -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.

       -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     When compiled in (ab -h will show you) use the SSL protected https rather than the http proto-col. protocol.
              col. This feature is experimental and very rudimentary. You probably do not want to use it.

       -S     Do not display the median and standard deviation values, nor display  the  warning/error  mes-sages messages
              sages 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:
              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).


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                               2009-09-14                                            AB(8)