Lotus Miner: Benchmarks

Lotus comes with a benchmarking tool that can be used to test how long each resource-intensive mining operation takes. This guide describes how to install the benchmarking tool, and some basic operations.

Installation

1. You must have the Lotus repository on your computer. If you do not have an existing copy of the repository, clone it from GitHub (opens new window):

   git clone https://github.com/filecoin-project/lotus.git ~/lotus
   
   > Cloning into '/root/lotus'...
   > remote: Enumerating objects: 93, done.
   > ...
   > Resolving deltas: 100% (51531/51531), done.
   

2. The lotus binary must be built and within the ~/lotus repository folder. If you just cloned the repository or have misplaced the lotus binary, build the project:

   cd ~/lotus
   make clean all && make install
   
   
   > rm -rf  build/.filecoin-install build/.update-modules  lotus lotus-miner lotus-worker lotus-shed lotus-gateway lotus-seed lotus-pond lotus-townhall lotus-fountain lotus-chainwatch lotus-bench lotus-stats lotus-pcr lotus-health lotus-wallet testground
   > make -C extern/filecoin-ffi/ clean
   > ...
   > install -C ./lotus /usr/local/bin/lotus
   > install -C ./lotus-miner /usr/local/bin/lotus-miner
   > install -C ./lotus-worker /usr/local/bin/lotus-worker
   

3. Call make lotus-bench to build the Lotus benchmark binary:

   make lotus-bench
   
   > rm -f lotus-bench
   > go build -o lotus-bench ./cmd/lotus-bench
   > ...
   > go run github.com/GeertJohan/go.rice/rice append --exec lotus-bench -i ./build
   

   This will produce a lotus-bench binary in the current folder.

4. You can now run lotus-bench against your system.

Usage

Use the self-documenting feature of the tool to explore the different commands.

    ./lotus-bench --help

    > NAME:
    > lotus-bench - Benchmark performance of lotus on your hardware
    >
    > USAGE:
    > lotus-bench [global options] command [command options] [arguments...]
    >
    > VERSION:
    > 1.2.0
    >
    > COMMANDS:
    > prove    Benchmark a proof computation
    > sealing
    > import   benchmark chain import and validation
    > help, h  Shows a list of commands or help for one command
    >
    > GLOBAL OPTIONS:
    > --help, -h     show help (default: false)
    > --version, -v  print the version (default: false)

Commands

Prove

Benchmark a proof computation using lotus-bench prove [command options] [arguments...]. For example:

./lotus-bench prove

Available options:

Options	Description
--no-gpu	Disable gpu usage for the benchmark run (default: false).
--miner-addr value	Pass miner address (only necessary if using existing sectorbuilder) (default: "t01000").
--help, -h	Show help (default: false).

Sealing

Benchmark a sealing computation using lotus-bench sealing [command options] [arguments...]. For example:

./lotus-bench sealing

> 2020-11-23T18:05:22.028Z        INFO    lotus-bench     lotus-bench/main.go:78  Starting lotus-bench
> ...
> ----
> results (v28) (536870912)
> seal: addPiece: 21.783625761s (23.5 MiB/s)
> seal: preCommit phase 1: 4m45.456592593s (1.794 MiB/s)
> seal: preCommit phase 2: 5m39.64126859s (1.507 MiB/s)
> seal: commit phase 1: 48.158372ms (10.38 GiB/s)
> seal: commit phase 2: 2m10.561079144s (3.922 MiB/s)
> seal: verify: 6.236412ms
> unseal: 3m52.85376877s  (2.199 MiB/s)
>
> generate candidates: 231.814µs (2.106 TiB/s)
> compute winning post proof (cold): 23.405645045s
> compute winning post proof (hot): 22.507299071s
> verify winning post proof (cold): 257.502167ms
> verify winning post proof (hot): 7.473581ms
>
> compute window post proof (cold): 7.132316755s
> compute window post proof (hot): 6.893502363s
> verify window post proof (cold): 57.524992ms
> verify window post proof (hot): 5.629919ms

Available options:

Option	Description
--storage-dir value	Path to the storage directory that will store sectors long term (default: "~/.lotus-bench").
--sector-size value	Size of the sectors in bytes, i.e. 32GiB (default: "512MiB").
--no-gpu	Disable gpu usage for the benchmark run (default: false).
--miner-addr value	Pass miner address (only necessary if using existing sectorbuilder) (default: "t01000")
--benchmark-existing-sectorbuilder value	pass a directory to run post timings on an existing sectorbuilder
--json-out	output results in json format (default: false)
--skip-commit2	skip the commit2 (snark) portion of the benchmark (default: false)
--skip-unseal	skip the unseal portion of the benchmark (default: false)
--save-commit2-input value	Save commit2 input to a file
--num-sectors value	(default: 1)
--parallel value	(default: 1)
--help, -h	show help (default: false)

Import

Benchmark chain import and validation using lotus-bench import command [command options] [arguments...]. For example:

./lotus-bench import analyze import.car

Available commands:

Command	Description
analyze	Analyze a .car file.
help	Show the help information.

Available options:

Option	Description
--start-tipset value	start validation at the given tipset key; in format cid1,cid2,cid3...
--end-tipset value	halt validation at the given tipset key; in format cid1,cid2,cid3...
--genesis-tipset value	genesis tipset key; in format cid1,cid2,cid3...
--start-height value	start validation at given height; beware that chain traversal by height is very slow (default: 0)
--end-height value	halt validation after given height; beware that chain traversal by height is very slow (default: 0)
--batch-seal-verify-threads value	set the parallelism factor for batch seal verification (default: 4)
--repodir value	set the repo directory for the lotus bench run (defaults to /tmp)
--syscall-cache value	read and write syscall results from datastore
--export-traces	should we export execution traces (default: true)
--no-import	should we import the chain? if set to true chain has to be previously imported (default: false)
--global-profile	(default: true)
--only-import	(default: false)
--use-pebble	(default: false)
--use-native-badger	(default: false)
--car value	path to CAR file; required for import; on validation, either a CAR path or the --head flag are required
--head value	tipset key of the head, useful when benchmarking validation on an existing chain store, where a CAR is not available; if both --car and --head are provided, --head takes precedence over the CAR root; the format is cid1,cid2,cid3...
--help, -h	show help (default: false)
--version, -v	print the version (default: false)