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.TH ab 1 "March 1998"
.\" Copyright (c) 1998-2000 The Apache Software Foundation. All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\"
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
.\"
.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in
.\" the documentation and/or other materials provided with the
.\" distribution.
.\"
.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this
.\" software must display the following acknowledgment:
.\" "This product includes software developed by the Apache Software Foundation
.\" for use in the Apache HTTP server project (http://www.apache.org/)."
.\"
.\" 4. The names "Apache Server" and "Apache Software Foundation" must not be used to
.\" endorse or promote products derived from this software without
.\" prior written permission.
.\"
.\" 5. Products derived from this software may not be called "Apache"
.\" nor may "Apache" appear in their names without prior written
.\" permission of the Apache Software Foundation.
.\"
.\" 6. Redistributions of any form whatsoever must retain the following
.\" acknowledgment:
.\" "This product includes software developed by the Apache Software Foundation
.\" for use in the Apache HTTP server project (http://www.apache.org/)."
.\"
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE Apache Software Foundation ``AS IS'' AND ANY
.\" EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
.\" PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE Apache Software Foundation OR
.\" ITS CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
.\" SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT
.\" NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES;
.\" LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT,
.\" STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
.\" ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED
.\" OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
.\" ====================================================================
.\"
.\" This software consists of voluntary contributions made by many
.\" individuals on behalf of the Apache Software Foundation and was originally based
.\" on public domain software written at the National Center for
.\" Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
.\" For more information on the Apache Software Foundation and the Apache HTTP server
.\" project, please see <http://www.apache.org/>.
.SH NAME
ab \- Apache HTTP server benchmarking tool
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B ab
[
.B \-k
] [
.BI \-n " requests"
] [
.BI \-t " timelimit"
] [
.BI \-c " concurrency"
] [
.BI \-p " POST file"
] [
.BI \-A " Authenticate username:password"
] [
.BI \-P " Proxy Authenticate username:password"
] [
.BI \-H " Custom header"
] [
.BI \-C " Cookie name=value"
] [
.BI \-T " content-type"
] [
.BI \-v " verbosity"
]
] [
.BI \-w " output HTML"
]
] [
.BI \-x " <table> attributes"
]
] [
.BI \-y " <tr> attributes"
]
] [
.BI \-z " <td> attributes"
]
.I [http://]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 on how performant is your
current Apache installation. This especially shows you how much requests per
time your Apache installation is capable to serve.
.PP
.SH OPTIONS
.TP 12
.B \-k
Enable the HTTP KeepAlive feature, i.e. perform multiple requests within one
HTTP session instead. Default is no KeepAlive.
.TP 12
.BI \-n " requests"
Number of requests to perform for the benchmarking session. The default is to
just perform one single request which usually leads to not very representative
benchmarking results.
.TP 12
.BI \-t " timelimit"
Seconds to max. spend for benchmarking. This implies
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 per time to perform.
Default is one request per time.
.TP 12
.BI \-p " POST file"
File containing data to POST.
.TP 12
.BI \-A " Authorization username:password"
Supply BASIC Authentification credentials to the server. The username
and password are separated by a single ':' and send on the wire uuencoded.
The string is send regardless of wether the server needs it; (i.e. has
send an 401. Authentifcation needed).
.TP 12
.BI \-p " Proxy-Authorization username:password"
Supply BASIC Authentification credentials to a proxy en-route. The username
and password are separated by a single ':' and send on the wire uuencoded.
The string is send regardless of wether the proxy needs it; (i.e. has
send an 407 Proxy authentifcation 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"
Postfix 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
.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)
.
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