HTTPING(1)HTTPING(1)NAMEhttping - measure the latency and throughput of a webserver
SYNOPSIShttping [options]
options: [-g url] [-h hostname] [-p portnumber] [-x proxyhost:port] [-c
count] [-i interval] [-t timeout] [-s] [-G] [-b] [-L xferlimit] [-X]
[-l] [-z] [-f] [-m] [-o rc,...] [-e string] [-I useragent string] [-R
referer string] [-r] [-n warn,crit] [-N mode] [-q] [-V]
DESCRIPTION
The program httping lets you measure the latency of a webserver. Since
version 1.0.6 also the throughput can be measured.
OPTIONS-5 The proxy server selected is a SOCKS5 server.
-6 Enable IPv6 mode. Default is IPv4.
-a Audible ping
-b Use this switch together with '-G'. When this option is used,
the transferspeed (in KB/s) is shown.
-B Use this switch together with '-G'. Ask the HTTP server to com‐
press the returned data: this will reduce the influence of the
bandwidth of your connection while increasing the influence of
the processorpower of the HTTP server.
-c count
How many probes to send before exiting.
-D Do not draw graphs in ncurses mode (-K).
-e str When the status-code differs from the ones selected with '-o',
the given string is displayed.
-E Retrieve proxy settings from environment variables ('http_proxy'
and 'https_proxy').
-F Attempt TCP Fast Open while trying to connect to a server (for
Linux, version 3.7 onwards of the kernel)
-f Flood ping: do not sit idle between each ping but ping as fast
as the computer and network allow you to.
-G Do a GET request instead of a HEAD request: this means that also
the complete page/file must be transferred. Note that in this
case you're no longer measuring the latency!
-g url This selects the url to probe. E.g.: http://localhost/
-h hostname
Instead of '-g' one can also set a hostname to probe with -h: -h
localhost
-I str UserAgent-string to send to the webserver (instead of 'HTTPing
<version>').
-i interval
How many seconds to sleep between every probe sent.
-K Enable ncurses user interface.
-L x Use this switch together with '-G'. Limit the amount of data
transferred to 'x'. Note that this only affects the content of
the page/file and not the headerdata.
-l Connect using SSL: for this to work you need to give a
'https'-url or a 443 portnumber.
-m Show machine readable output (also check '-o' and '-e').
-N x Switches HTTPing to Nagios-plugin mode 2: return 0 when every‐
thing is fine, 'x' when anything fails. E.g.: 1 => Nagios warn‐
ing state, 2 => Nagios critical state.
-n warn,crit
Switches HTTPing to Nagios-plugin mode 1: return exitcode '1'
when the average response time is bigger then 'warn', return
exitcode '2' when the the average response time is bigger then
'crit'. In all other cases return exitcode '0'.
-o x,x,...
This selects the HTTP status-codes which are regarded as an OK-
state (only with '-m').
-p portnumber
-p can be used together with -h. -p selects the portnumber to
probe.
-q Be quiet, only return an exit-code.
-R str Referer-string to send to the webserver.
-r Only resolve the hostname once: this takes the resolving out of
the loop so that the latency of the DNS is not measured. Also
useful when you want to measure only 1 webserver while the DNS
returns a different ip-address for each resolve ('roundrobin').
-S Split measured latency in time to connect and time to exchange a
request with the HTTP server.
-s When a successfull transaction was done, show the HTTP status‐
code (200, 404, etc.).
-T x Read the password for website authentication from file 'x'
(instead of entering it on the command line).
-t timeout
How long to wait for answer from the other side.
-U Enable authentication against website. Set username with -U, set
password with -P (or -T to read the password from a file).
-v Increase verbosity mode. To show standard deviation and dates in
output.
-W Do not abort program if resolving fails.
-X Use this switch together with '-G'. For each "ping" show the
amount of data transferred (excluding the headers).
-x proxyhost[:port]
Probe using a proxyserver. Note that you're also measuring the
latency of the proxyserver!
-Y Enable colors
-z When connecting using SSL, display the fingerprint of the X509
certificate(s) of the peer.
--abbreviate
Abbreviate values bigger than thousand, million, billion, etc.
--adaptive-interval or --ai
(Try to) ping on the same interval. E.g. if interval is set to
1.0 seconds and ping a ping t[n] occurs at 500s with duration
250ms, then the next ping (t[n+1]) will happen at 501 seconds
and not at 501.25 seconds. Of course when the ping duration is >
bigger than the interval, a ping will be "skipped" (not liter‐
ally: the sequence number will continue) and t[n+1] will then be
e.g. 502s instead of the expected 501s. This is useful for exam‐
ple in the ncurses output mode where an fft is calculated over
the ping times.
--aggregates x[,y[,z[,etc.]]]
Show aggregates every x[/y[/z[/etc]]] seconds.
--divert-connect x
Ignore the hostname in the URL and connect to 'x' instead. The
given URL will be requested at 'x'.
--draw-phase
Not only draw the magnitude of the fourier transform, draw the
phase as well.
--graph-limit x
If values measured are bigger than x, then they're limitted to
x.
--header x
Add an additional request-header 'x'.
--keep-cookies
When the server sends a cookie, it will be returned in the next
request.
--max-mtu x
Maximum MTU to use. Cannot be larger than network interface MTU.
--no-host-header
Do not put a "Host:"-header in the request header.
--no-tcp-nodelay
Do not disable "tcp delay" (Naggle).
--priority x
Set priority of packets.
--tos x
Set type of service.
--proxy-user x
Use username 'x' to authenticate against proxy (http/socks5)
server (optional).
--proxy-password x
Use password 'x' to authenticate against proxy (http/socks5)
server (optional).
--proxy-password-file x
Read password from file 'x' to authenticate against proxy
(http/socks5) server (optional).
--recv-buffer x
Set the size of the receive buffer (in bytes).
--slow-log x
When the duration is x or more, show ping line in the slow log
window (the middle window).
--threshold-red x
If the measured threshold is higher than x (and -Y is given),
then the shown value is colored red. If you also use --thresh‐
old-yellow, then this value must be bigger.
--threshold-yellow x
If the measured threshold is higher than x (and -Y is given),
then the shown value is colored yellow.
--threshold-show x
If the measured threshold is higher than x, then the result is
shown (default is show always). The value x is in ms.
--timestamp or --ts
Put a timestamp before the result-lines. Use -v to also show a
date.
--tx-buffer x
Set the size of the transmit buffer (in bytes).
-V Show the version and exit.
OUTPUT
In split mode (-S) something like
"time=0.08+24.09+23.17+15.64+0.02=62.98 ms" is shown. The first value
is the time it took to resolve the hostname (or 'n/a' if it did not
resolve in this iteration, e.g. in "resolve once" (-r) mode), then the
time it took to connect (or -1 for example in persistent connection
(-Q, HTTP v1.1), after that the time it took to put the request on the
wire, then the time it took for the HTTP server to process the request
and send it back and lastly the time it took to close the connection.
GRAPH
The graph in the ncurses uses colors to encode a meaning. Green: value
is less than 1 block. Red: the value did not fit in the graph. Blue:
the value was limitted by --graph-limit. Cyan: no measurement for that
point in time.
KEYS
Press <CTRL> + <c> to exit the program. It will display a summary of
what was measured. In the ncurses gui, press <CTRL> + <l> to forcibly
redraw the screen. Press 'H' to halt the graphs (and again to con‐
tinue). Press 'q' to stop the program (<CTRL> + <c> will work too).
EXAMPLEShttping-g http://localhost/
Ping the webserver on host 'localhost'.
httping-h localhost -p 1000
Ping the webserver on host 'localhost' and portnumber 1000.
httping-l -g https://localhost/
Ping the webserver on host 'localhost' using an SSL connection.
httping-g http://localhost/ -U username -P password
Ping the webserver on host 'localhost' using the Basic HTTP
Authentication.
BUGS
None. This program is totally bug-free.
SEE ALSO
http://www.vanheusden.com/httping/
NOTES
This page describes httping as found in the httping-2.3 package; other
versions may differ slightly. Please mail corrections and additions to
folkert@vanheusden.com. Report bugs in the program to folkert@vanheus‐
den.com. Please consider sending bitcoins to
1N5Sn4jny4xVwTwSYLnf7WnFQEGoVRmTQF
httping 2013-07 HTTPING(1)
