apache/docs/man/ab.8

.TH ab 1 "March 2000"
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.SH NAME
ab \- Apache HTTP server benchmarking tool
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B ab 
[
.B \-k
] [
.B \-e
] [
.B \-q
] [
.B \-S
] [
.B \-i
] [
+ .B \-s
] [
.BI \-n " requests"
] [
.BI \-t " timelimit"
] [
.BI \-c " concurrency"
] [
.BI \-p " POST file"
] [
.BI \-A " Authentication username:password"
] [
.BI \-P " Proxy Authentication username:password"
] [
.BI \-H " Custom header"
] [
.BI \-C " Cookie name=value"
] [
.BI \-T " content-type"
] [
.BI \-X " proxy [ :port ]"
] [
.BI \-v " verbosity"
]
] [
.BI \-w " output HTML"
]
] [
.BI \-g " output GNUPLOT"
]
] [
.BI \-e " output CSV"
]
] [
.BI \-x " <table> attributes"
]
] [
.BI \-y " <tr> attributes"
]
] [
.BI \-z " <td> attributes"
]
.I [http[s]://]hostname[:port]/path 

.B ab
[
.B \-V
] [
.B \-h 
]
.PP
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B 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. 
.PP
.SH OPTIONS
.TP 12
.B \-k 
Enable the HTTP KeepAlive feature, i.e., perform multiple requests within one
HTTP session. Default is no KeepAlive.
.TP 12
.BI \-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.
.TP 12
.BI \-t " timelimit"
Maximum number of seconds to spend for benchmarking. This implies
.B \-d
Do not display the "percentage served within XX [ms] table". (legacy
support).
.TP 12
.B \-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 12
.B \-s
When compiled in (bb -h will show you) use the SSL protected
.B https
rather than the 
.B http
protocol. This feature is experimental and
.B very
rudimentary. You propably do not want to use it.
.TP 12
.B \-k 
Enable the HTTP KeepAlive feature; that is, perform multiple requests
within one HTTP session. Default is no KeepAlive.
a 
.B \-n 
.B 50000
internally. Use this to benchmark the server within a fixed total amount of
time.  Per default there is no timelimit. 
.TP 12
.BI \-c " concurrency"
Number of multiple requests to perform at a time. 
Default is one request at a time.

.TP 12
.BI \-p " POST file"
File containing data to POST.

.TP 12
.BI \-A " Authentication username:password"
Supply BASIC Authentication credentials to the server. The username
and password are separated by a single ':' and sent on the wire uuencoded.
The string is sent regardless of whether the server needs it; (i.e., has
sent an 401 authentication needed).

.TP 12
.BI \-X " proxy[:port]"
Route all requests through the proxy (at optional port).

.TP 12
.BI \-P " Proxy-Authentication 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 uuencoded.
The string is sent regardless of whether the proxy needs it; (i.e., has
sent an 407 proxy authentication needed).

.TP 12
.BI \-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.

.TP 12
.BI \-p " Header string"
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').

.TP 12
.BI \-T " content-type"
Content-type header to use for POST data.

.TP 12
.BI \-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 Excell. The labels are on the first line of the file. 

.TP 12
.BI \-q
When processing more than 150 requsts; 
.B ab
outputs a progress count on 
.B stderr
every 10% or 100 requests or so. The 
.B -q
flag qill suppress these messages.

.TP 12
.BI \-e " CSV file"
Write a Comma separated value (CSV) file which contains for each
percentage (from 1% to 100%) the time (in milli seconds) it took
to serve that percentage of the requests. This is usually more
usefull than the 'gnuplot' file; as the results are already
'binned'.

.TP 12
.B \-v 
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 12
.BI \-w
Print out results in HTML tables.  Default table is two columns wide,
with a white background.
.TP 12
.BI \-x " attributes"
String to use as attributes for <table>.  Attributes are inserted
<table 
.B here
>
.TP 12
.BI \-y " attributes"
String to use as attributes for <tr>.
.TP 12
.BI \-z " attributes"
String to use as attributes for <td>.
.TP 12
.B \-V
Display version number and exit.
.TP 12
.B \-h 
Display usage information.
.PD
.SH 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.
.P
It does not implement HTTP/1.x fully; only accepts some 'expected' forms
of responses. The rather heavy use of 
.BR strstr(3)
shows up top in profile,
which might indicate a performance problem; i.e., you would measure the
.BR ab
performance rather than the server's.

.SH SEE ALSO
.BR httpd(8)
.P
The HTML output is not as complete as the text output.
.P
Up to version 1.3d
.B ab
has propably reported values way to low for most measurements;
as a single timeout (which is usually in the order of seconds)
will shift several thousands of milli-second responses by a
considerable factor. This was further componded by a serious
interger overrun which would for realistic run's (i.e. those
longer than a few minutes) produce believable but totally 
bogus results. Thanks to Sander Temme <sander@covalent.net>
for solving this riddle.
.