How do I measure request and response times at once using cURL

Question

I have a web service that receives data in JSON format  processes the data  and then returns the result to the requester   I want to measure the request  response  and total time using cURL   My example request looks like   curl -X POST -d  file server port   and I currently measure this using the time command in Linux   time curl -X POST -d  file server port   The time command only measures total time  though - which isn t quite what I am looking for   Is there any way to measure request and response times using cURL

User · Answer

Here is the answer   curl -X POST -d  file server port -w   time connect    time starttransfer    time total    All of the variables used with -w can be found in man curl

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Here s a Bash one-liner to hit the same server repeatedly     for i in  1  1000   do curl -s -o  dev null -w    time total  n  http   server get things  done

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I made a friendly formatter for sniffing curl requests to help with debugging   see comments for usage     It contains s every known output parameter you can write out in an easy to read format   https   gist github com manifestinteractive ce8dec10dcb4725b8513

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here is the string you can use with -w  contains all options that curl -w supports      contentType     content type    filenameEffective     filename effective    ftpEntryPath     ftp entry path    httpCode     http code    httpConnect     http connect    httpVersion     http version    localIp     local ip    localPort     local port    numConnects     num connects    numRedirects     num redirects    proxySslVerifyResult     proxy ssl verify result    redirectUrl     redirect url    remoteIp     remote ip    remotePort     remote port    scheme     scheme    size    download     size download    header     size header    request     size request    upload     size upload     speed    download     speed download    upload     speed upload     sslVerifyResult     ssl verify result    time    appconnect     time appconnect    connect     time connect    namelookup     time namelookup    pretransfer     time pretransfer    redirect     time redirect    starttransfer     time starttransfer    total     time total     urlEffective     url effective      outputs JSON

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From this brilliant blog post     https   blog josephscott org 2011 10 14 timing-details-with-curl  cURL supports formatted output for the details of the request  see the cURL manpage for details  under -w     write-out  lt format gt    For our purposes we   ll focus just on the timing details that are provided  Times below are in seconds   Create a new file  curl-format txt  and paste in       time namelookup     time namelookup s n         time connect     time connect s n      time appconnect     time appconnect s n     time pretransfer     time pretransfer s n        time redirect     time redirect s n   time starttransfer     time starttransfer s n                      ---------- n           time total     time total s n   Make a request   curl -w  quot  curl-format txt quot  -o  dev null -s  quot http   wordpress com  quot     Or on Windows  it s        curl -w  quot  curl-format txt quot  -o NUL -s  quot http   wordpress com  quot    What this does  -w  quot  curl-format txt quot  tells cURL to use our format file -o  dev null redirects the output of the request to  dev null -s tells cURL not to show a progress meter  quot http   wordpress com  quot  is the URL we are requesting  Use quotes particularly if your URL has  quot  amp  quot  query string parameters  And here is what you get back     time namelookup   0 001s       time connect   0 037s    time appconnect   0 000s   time pretransfer   0 037s      time redirect   0 000s time starttransfer   0 092s                    ----------         time total   0 164s   Make a Linux Mac shortcut  alias  alias curltime  quot curl -w   quot   HOME  curl-format txt  quot  -o  dev null -s  quot   Then you can simply call    curltime wordpress org  Thanks to commenter Pete Doyle   Make a Linux Mac stand-alone script This script does not require a separate  txt file to contain the formatting  Create a new file  curltime  somewhere in your executable path  and paste in     bin bash  curl -w  - -o  dev null -s  quot    quot   lt  lt  EOF      time namelookup     time namelookup  n        time connect     time connect  n     time appconnect     time appconnect  n    time pretransfer     time pretransfer  n       time redirect     time redirect  n  time starttransfer     time starttransfer  n                     ---------- n          time total     time total  n EOF  Call the same way as the alias  curltime wordpress org   Make a Windows shortcut  aka BAT file  Put this command in CURLTIME BAT  in the same folder as curl exe  curl -w  quot    dp0curl-format txt quot  -o NUL -s     Then you can simply call    curltime wordpress org

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Hey is better than Apache Bench  has fewer issues with SSL    hey https   google com -more Summary    Total     3 0960 secs   Slowest   1 6052 secs   Fastest   0 4063 secs   Average   0 6773 secs   Requests sec  64 5992  Response time histogram    0 406  1      0 526  142                                                0 646  1      0 766  6        0 886  0      1 006  0      1 126  0      1 246  12            1 365  32                  1 485  5       1 605  1     Latency distribution    10  in 0 4265 secs   25  in 0 4505 secs   50  in 0 4838 secs   75  in 1 2181 secs   90  in 1 2869 secs   95  in 1 3384 secs   99  in 1 4085 secs  Details  average  fastest  slowest     DNS dialup     0 1150 secs  0 0000 secs  0 4849 secs   DNS-lookup     0 0032 secs  0 0000 secs  0 0319 secs   req write      0 0001 secs  0 0000 secs  0 0007 secs   resp wait      0 2068 secs  0 1690 secs  0 4906 secs   resp read      0 0117 secs  0 0011 secs  0 2375 secs  Status code distribution     200  200 responses   References   https   github com rakyll hey

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Option 1  To measure total time   curl -o  dev null -s -w  Total    time total s n   https   www google com   Sample output     Option 2  To get time to establish connection  TTFB  time to first byte and total time   curl -o  dev null -s -w  Establish Connection    time connect s nTTFB    time starttransfer s nTotal    time total s n   https   www google com   Sample output     Ref  Get response time with curl

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If you want to analyze or summarize the latency you can try apache bench   ab -n  number of samples   url    For example   ab -n 100 http   www google com    It will show   This is ApacheBench  Version 2 3  lt  Revision  1757674   gt  Copyright 1996 Adam Twiss  Zeus Technology Ltd  http   www zeustech net  Licensed to The Apache Software Foundation  http   www apache org   Benchmarking www google com  be patient      done   Server Software         gws Server Hostname         www google com Server Port             80  Document Path             Document Length         12419 bytes  Concurrency Level       1 Time taken for tests    10 700 seconds Complete requests       100 Failed requests         97     Connect  0  Receive  0  Length  97  Exceptions  0  Total transferred       1331107 bytes HTML transferred        1268293 bytes Requests per second     9 35    sec   mean  Time per request        107 004  ms   mean  Time per request        107 004  ms   mean  across all concurrent requests  Transfer rate           121 48  Kbytes sec  received  Connection Times  ms                min  mean   -sd  median   max Connect        20   22   0 8     22      26 Processing     59   85 108 7     68     911 Waiting        59   85 108 7     67     910 Total          80  107 108 8     90     932  Percentage of the requests served within a certain time  ms    50      90   66      91   75      93   80      95   90     105   95     111   98     773   99     932  100     932  longest request

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A shortcut you can add to your  bashrc etc  based on other answers here   function perf     curl -o  dev null -s -w    time connect      time starttransfer      time total  n    1      Usage    gt  perf stackoverflow com 0 521   0 686   1 290

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This is a modified version of Simons answer which makes the multi-lined output a single line  It also introduces the current timestamp so it s easier to follow each line of output  Sample format fle   cat time-format txt time namelookup   time namelookup  time connect   time connect  time appconnect   time appconnect  time pretransfer   time pretransfer  time redirect   time redirect  time starttransfer   time starttransfer  time total   time total  n  example cmd   while   1   do echo -n  quot   date  -  quot    curl -w  time-format txt -o  dev null -s https   myapp mydom com v1 endpt-http  sleep 1  done   grep -v time total 0  results Mon Dec 16 17 51 47 UTC 2019 - time namelookup 0 004 time connect 0 015 time appconnect 0 172 time pretransfer 0 172 time redirect 0 000 time starttransfer 1 666 time total 1 666 Mon Dec 16 17 51 50 UTC 2019 - time namelookup 0 004 time connect 0 015 time appconnect 0 175 time pretransfer 0 175 time redirect 0 000 time starttransfer 3 794 time total 3 795 Mon Dec 16 17 51 55 UTC 2019 - time namelookup 0 004 time connect 0 017 time appconnect 0 175 time pretransfer 0 175 time redirect 0 000 time starttransfer 1 971 time total 1 971 Mon Dec 16 17 51 58 UTC 2019 - time namelookup 0 004 time connect 0 014 time appconnect 0 173 time pretransfer 0 173 time redirect 0 000 time starttransfer 1 161 time total 1 161 Mon Dec 16 17 52 00 UTC 2019 - time namelookup 0 004 time connect 0 015 time appconnect 0 166 time pretransfer 0 167 time redirect 0 000 time starttransfer 1 434 time total 1 434 Mon Dec 16 17 52 02 UTC 2019 - time namelookup 0 004 time connect 0 015 time appconnect 0 177 time pretransfer 0 177 time redirect 0 000 time starttransfer 5 119 time total 5 119 Mon Dec 16 17 52 08 UTC 2019 - time namelookup 0 004 time connect 0 014 time appconnect 0 172 time pretransfer 0 172 time redirect 0 000 time starttransfer 30 185 time total 30 185 Mon Dec 16 17 52 39 UTC 2019 - time namelookup 0 004 time connect 0 014 time appconnect 0 164 time pretransfer 0 164 time redirect 0 000 time starttransfer 30 175 time total 30 176 Mon Dec 16 17 54 28 UTC 2019 - time namelookup 0 004 time connect 0 015 time appconnect 3 191 time pretransfer 3 191 time redirect 0 000 time starttransfer 3 212 time total 3 212 Mon Dec 16 17 56 08 UTC 2019 - time namelookup 0 004 time connect 0 015 time appconnect 1 184 time pretransfer 1 184 time redirect 0 000 time starttransfer 1 215 time total 1 215 Mon Dec 16 18 00 24 UTC 2019 - time namelookup 0 004 time connect 0 015 time appconnect 0 181 time pretransfer 0 181 time redirect 0 000 time starttransfer 1 267 time total 1 267  I used the above to catch slow responses on the above endpoint

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The following is inspired by Simon s answer  It s self-contained  doesn t require a separate format file   which makes it great for inclusion into  bashrc     curl time         curl -so  dev null -w       namelookup     time namelookup s n        connect     time connect s n     appconnect     time appconnect s n    pretransfer     time pretransfer s n       redirect     time redirect s n  starttransfer     time starttransfer s n  ------------------------- n          total     time total s n           Futhermore  it should work with all arguments that curl normally takes  since the      just passes them through  For example  you can do   curl time -X POST -H  Content-Type  application json  -d    key    val    https   postman-echo com post   Output      namelookup   0 125000s       connect   0 250000s    appconnect   0 609000s   pretransfer   0 609000s      redirect   0 000000s starttransfer   0 719000s -------------------------         total   0 719000s

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Another option that is perhaps the simplest one in terms of the command line is adding the built-in --trace-time option   curl -X POST -d  file server port --trace-time   Even though it technically does not output the timings of the various steps as requested by the OP  it does display the timestamps for all steps of the request as shown below  Using this  you can  fairly easily  calculate how long each step has taken     curl https   www google com --trace-time -v -o  dev null 13 29 11 148734   Rebuilt URL to  https   www google com      Total      Received   Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current                                  Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed   0     0    0     0    0     0      0      0 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --     013 29 11 149958     Trying 172 217 20 36    13 29 11 149993   TCP NODELAY set 13 29 11 163177   Connected to www google com  172 217 20 36  port 443   0  13 29 11 164768   ALPN  offering h2 13 29 11 164804   ALPN  offering http 1 1 13 29 11 164833   successfully set certificate verify locations  13 29 11 164863     CAfile  none   CApath   etc ssl certs 13 29 11 165046    5 bytes data  13 29 11 165099    304   OUT   TLS handshake  Client hello  1   13 29 11 165128    512 bytes data  13 29 11 189518    304   IN   TLS handshake  Server hello  2   13 29 11 189537    100 bytes data  13 29 11 189628   TLSv1 2  IN   TLS handshake  Certificate  11   13 29 11 189658    2104 bytes data  13 29 11 190243   TLSv1 2  IN   TLS handshake  Server key exchange  12   13 29 11 190277    115 bytes data  13 29 11 190507   TLSv1 2  IN   TLS handshake  Server finished  14   13 29 11 190539    4 bytes data  13 29 11 190770   TLSv1 2  OUT   TLS handshake  Client key exchange  16   13 29 11 190797    37 bytes data  13 29 11 190890   TLSv1 2  OUT   TLS change cipher  Client hello  1   13 29 11 190915    1 bytes data  13 29 11 191023   TLSv1 2  OUT   TLS handshake  Finished  20   13 29 11 191053    16 bytes data  13 29 11 204324   TLSv1 2  IN   TLS handshake  Finished  20   13 29 11 204358    16 bytes data  13 29 11 204417   SSL connection using TLSv1 2   ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305 13 29 11 204451   ALPN  server accepted to use h2 13 29 11 204483   Server certificate  13 29 11 204520    subject  C US  ST California  L Mountain View  O Google LLC  CN www google com 13 29 11 204555    start date  Oct  2 07 29 00 2018 GMT 13 29 11 204585    expire date  Dec 25 07 29 00 2018 GMT 13 29 11 204623    subjectAltName  host  www google com  matched cert s  www google com  13 29 11 204663    issuer  C US  O Google Trust Services  CN Google Internet Authority G3 13 29 11 204701    SSL certificate verify ok  13 29 11 204754   Using HTTP2  server supports multi-use 13 29 11 204795   Connection state changed  HTTP 2 confirmed  13 29 11 204840   Copying HTTP 2 data in stream buffer to connection buffer after upgrade  len 0 13 29 11 204881    5 bytes data  13 29 11 204983   Using Stream ID  1  easy handle 0x55846ef24520  13 29 11 205034    5 bytes data  13 29 11 205104  gt  GET   HTTP 2 13 29 11 205104  gt  Host  www google com 13 29 11 205104  gt  User-Agent  curl 7 61 0 13 29 11 205104  gt  Accept      13 29 11 205104  gt   13 29 11 218116    5 bytes data  13 29 11 218173   Connection state changed  MAX CONCURRENT STREAMS    100   13 29 11 218211    5 bytes data  13 29 11 251936  lt  HTTP 2 200  13 29 11 251962  lt  date  Fri  19 Oct 2018 10 29 11 GMT 13 29 11 251998  lt  expires  -1 13 29 11 252046  lt  cache-control  private  max-age 0 13 29 11 252085  lt  content-type  text html  charset ISO-8859-1 13 29 11 252119  lt  p3p  CP  This is not a P3P policy  See g co p3phelp for more info   13 29 11 252160  lt  server  gws 13 29 11 252198  lt  x-xss-protection  1  mode block 13 29 11 252228  lt  x-frame-options  SAMEORIGIN 13 29 11 252262  lt  set-cookie  1P JAR 2018-10-19-10  expires Sun  18-Nov-2018 10 29 11 GMT  path    domain  google com 13 29 11 252297  lt  set-cookie  NID 141 pzXxp1jrJmLwFVl9bLMPFdGCtG8ySQKxB2rlDWgerrKJeXxfdmB1HhJ1UXzX-OaFQcnR1A9LKYxi  PWMigjMBQHmI3xkU53LI TsYRbkMNJNdxs-caQQ7fEcDGE694S  expires Sat  20-Apr-2019 10 29 11 GMT  path    domain  google com  HttpOnly 13 29 11 252336  lt  alt-svc  quic   443   ma 2592000  v  44 43 39 35  13 29 11 252368  lt  accept-ranges  none 13 29 11 252408  lt  vary  Accept-Encoding 13 29 11 252438  lt   13 29 11 252473    5 bytes data  100 12215    0 12215    0     0   112k      0 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  112k 13 29 11 255674   Connection  0 to host www google com left intact

User · Answer

Another way is configuring    curlrc like this  -w   n n     cURL measurements stats      ntotal    time total  seconds  nsize    size download  bytes  ndnslookup    time namelookup  seconds  nconnect    time connect  seconds  nappconnect    time appconnect  seconds  nredirect    time redirect  seconds  npretransfer    time pretransfer  seconds  nstarttransfer    time starttransfer  seconds  ndownloadspeed    speed download  byte sec  nuploadspeed    speed upload  byte sec  n n    So the output of curl is     curl -I https   google com HTTP 2 301 location  https   www google com  content-type  text html  charset UTF-8 date  Mon  04 Mar 2019 08 02 43 GMT expires  Wed  03 Apr 2019 08 02 43 GMT cache-control  public  max-age 2592000 server  gws content-length  220 x-xss-protection  1  mode block x-frame-options  SAMEORIGIN alt-svc  quic   443   ma 2592000  v  44 43 39          cURL measurements stats      total  0 211117 seconds size  0 bytes dnslookup  0 067179 seconds connect  0 098817 seconds appconnect  0 176232 seconds redirect  0 000000 seconds pretransfer  0 176438 seconds starttransfer  0 209634 seconds downloadspeed  0 000 byte sec uploadspeed  0 000 byte sec

User · Answer

curl -v --trace-time  This must be done in verbose mode

[curl] How do I measure request and response times at once using cURL?

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