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
add an example, a script, a trick and tips
examples
ab -n100 -c10 http://google.com/
##What does it do ?
will make 100 requests to google with 10 of concurrency
##Output:
This is ApacheBench, Version 2.3 <$Revision: 655654 $>
Copyright 1996 Adam Twiss, Zeus Technology Ltd, http://www.zeustech.net/
Licensed to The Apache Software Foundation, http://www.apache.org/
Benchmarking google.com (be patient).....done
Server Software: gws
Server Hostname: google.com
Server Port: 80
Document Path: /
Document Length: 219 bytes
Concurrency Level: 10
Time taken for tests: 1.792 seconds
Complete requests: 100
Failed requests: 0
Write errors: 0
Non-2xx responses: 100
Total transferred: 56900 bytes
HTML transferred: 21900 bytes
Requests per second: 55.81 [#/sec] (mean)
Time per request: 179.172 [ms] (mean)
Time per request: 17.917 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests)
Transfer rate: 31.01 [Kbytes/sec] received
Connection Times (ms)
min mean[+/-sd] median max
Connect: 15 18 1.4 18 20
Processing: 136 152 18.5 152 312
Waiting: 136 152 18.5 152 312
Total: 151 169 18.6 169 330
Percentage of the requests served within a certain time (ms)
50% 169
66% 173
75% 175
80% 177
90% 179
95% 185
98% 199
99% 330
100% 330 (longest request)
example added by Leandro Ferreira
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 protocol. 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 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: 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).
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.
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.