FIRESTARTER maximizes the energy consumption of 64-Bit x86 processors by generating heavy load on the execution units as well as transferring data between the cores and multiple levels of the memory hierarchy.
WARNING: This software REALLY comes WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY! Some systems cannot handle the high load and crash due to overheating. It cannot be ruled out that the stress test damages the hardware! USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!
- Intel Nehalem, Westmere, Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell, Skylake, Knights Landing
- AMD Bulldozer (experimental), Zen, Zen+, Zen2
Usage:
./FIRESTARTER [OPTION...]
Information Options:
-h, --help [=SECTION(=)] Display usage information. SECTION can be any of:
information | general | specialized-workloads | debug
| measurement | optimization
-v, --version Display version information
-c, --copyright Display copyright information
-w, --warranty Display warranty information
-q, --quiet Set log level to Warning
-r, --report Display additional information (overridden by -q)
--debug Print debug output
-a, --avail List available functions
General Options:
-i, --function ID Specify integer ID of the load-function to be
used (as listed by --avail)
-f, --usegpufloat Use single precision matrix multiplications
instead of default
-d, --usegpudouble Use double precision matrix multiplications
instead of default
-g, --gpus arg Number of gpus to use, default: -1 (all)
-m, --matrixsize arg Size of the matrix to calculate, default: 0 (maximum)
-t, --timeout TIMEOUT Set the timeout (seconds) after which FIRESTARTER
terminates itself, default: 0 (no timeout)
-l, --load LOAD Set the percentage of high CPU load to LOAD
(%) default: 100, valid values: 0 <= LOAD <=
100, threads will be idle in the remaining time,
frequency of load changes is determined by -p. This option
does NOT influence the GPU
workload!
-p, --period PERIOD Set the interval length for CPUs to PERIOD
(usec), default: 100000, each interval contains
a high load and an idle phase, the percentage
of high load is defined by -l.
-n, --threads COUNT Specify the number of threads. Cannot be
combined with -b | --bind, which impicitly
specifies the number of threads.
-b, --bind CPULIST Select certain CPUs. CPULIST format: "x,y,z",
"x-y", "x-y/step", and any combination of the
above. Cannot be combined with -n | --threads.
--error-detection Enable error detection. This aborts execution when the
calculated data is corruped by errors. FIRESTARTER must run
with 2 or more threads for this feature. Cannot be used with
-l | --load and --optimize.
Specialized workloads:
--list-instruction-groups
List the available instruction groups for the
payload of the current platform.
--run-instruction-groups GROUPS
Run the payload with the specified
instruction groups. GROUPS format: multiple INST:VAL
pairs comma-seperated.
--set-line-count arg Set the number of lines for a payload.
Debugging:
--allow-unavailable-payload
--dump-registers [=DELAY(=10)]
Dump the working registers on the first
thread. Depending on the payload these are mm, xmm,
ymm or zmm. Only use it without a timeout and
100 percent load. DELAY between dumps in secs.
--dump-registers-outpath PATH
Path for the dump of the output files. If
PATH is not given, current working directory will
be used.
Measurement:
--list-metrics List the available metrics.
--metric-from-stdin NAME Add a metric NAME with values from stdin.
Format of input: "NAME TIME_SINCE_EPOCH VALUE\n".
TIME_SINCE_EPOCH is a int64 in nanoseconds. VALUE is a
double. (Do not forget to flush
lines!)
--measurement Start a measurement for the time specified by
-t | --timeout. (The timeout must be greater
than the start and stop deltas.) Cannot be
combined with --optimize.
--measurement-interval arg
Interval of measurements in milliseconds, default: 100
--start-delta N Cut of first N milliseconds of measurement, default: 5000
--stop-delta N Cut of last N milliseconds of measurement, default: 2000
--preheat N Preheat for N seconds, default: 240
Optimization:
--optimize arg Run the optimization with one of these algorithms: NSGA2.
Cannot be combined with --measurement.
--optimize-outfile arg Dump the output of the optimization into this
file, default: $PWD/$HOSTNAME_$DATE.json
--optimization-metric arg
Use a metric for optimization. Metrics listed
with cli argument --list-metrics or specified
with --metric-from-stdin are valid.
--individuals arg Number of individuals for the population. For
NSGA2 specify at least 5 and a multiple of 4,
default: 20
--generations arg Number of generations, default: 20
--nsga2-cr arg Crossover probability. Must be in range [0,1[
default: 0.6
--nsga2-m arg Mutation probability. Must be in range [0,1]
default: 0.4
Examples:
./FIRESTARTER starts FIRESTARTER without timeout
./FIRESTARTER -t 300 starts a 5 minute run of FIRESTARTER
./FIRESTARTER -l 50 -t 600 starts a 10 minute run of FIRESTARTER with
50% high load on CPUs and full load on GPUs
./FIRESTARTER -l 75 -p 20000000
starts FIRESTARTER with an interval length
of 2 sec, 1.5s high load and 0.5s idle
on CPUs and full load on GPUs
./FIRESTARTER --measurement --start-delta=300000 -t 900
starts FIRESTARTER measuring all available
metrics for 15 minutes disregarding the first
5 minutes and last two seconds (default to `--stop-delta`)
./FIRESTARTER -t 20 --optimize=NSGA2 --optimization-metric sysfs-powercap-rapl,perf-ipc
starts FIRESTARTER optimizing with the sysfs-powercap-rapl
and perf-ipc metric. The duration is 20s long. The default
instruction groups for the current platform will be used.
FIRESTARTER can be build under Linux, Windows and macOS with CMake.
GCC (>=7) or Clang (>=9) is supported.
| CMake option | Description |
|---|---|
FIRESTARTER_BUILD_TYPE |
Can be any of FIRESTARTER, FIRESTARTER_CUDA, FIRESTARTER_ONEAPI, or FIRESTARTER_HIP. Default FIRESTARTER |
FIRESTARTER_LINK_STATIC |
Link FIRESTARTER as a static binary. Note, dlopen is not supported in static binaries. This option is not available on macOS or with CUDA or OneAPI enabled. Default ON |
FIRESTARTER_BUILD_HWLOC |
Build hwloc dependency. Default ON |
FIRESTARTER_THREAD_AFFINITY |
Enable FIRESTARTER to set affinity to hardware threads. Default ON |
When building FIRESTARTER_ONEAPI make sure that the Intel Math Kernel Library (MKL) and the complier icx can be found. These will be used to build FIRESTARTER, while dependencies will be build with $CC and $CXX respectively.
The Linux version of FIRESTARTER supports to collect metrics during runtime.
Available metrics can be shown with --list-metrics. Default metrics are
perf-ipc, perf-freq, ipc-estimate and sysfs-powercap-rapl.
If one would like to use custom metrics, e.g. an external power measurement,
--metric-from-stdin=NAME allows metric values to be passed via stdin in the
following format: {NAME} {TIME SINCE EPOCH IN NS} {ABSOLUT METRIC VALUE (double)}\n. See
here
for a basic example.
The Linux version of FIRESTARTER has the option to output the collected metric
values by specifying --measurement. Options --start-delta (default 5000ms)
and --stop-delta (default 2000ms) specify a time in milliseconds in which
metric values should be ignored. After a run, the output will be printed in CSV
format to stdout.
Measure all available metrics for 15 minutes disregarding the first 5 minutes
and last two seconds (default to --stop-delta).
FIRESTARTER --measurement --start-delta=300000 -t 900
The Linux version of FIRESTARTER has the option to optimize itself using
evolutionary algorithms. It currently supports the multiobjective algorithm
NSGA2, selected by --optimize=NSGA2.
The evolutionary algorithm evaluates individuals one after another. Each
evaluation of a given individual is -t | --timeout seconds long. Selecting a
long enough time for letting the power consumption stabilize, but not too long
as this will leed to a much longer optimization timespan. During this time
metrics are collected and the selected metrics (--optimization-metrics) are
used for assigning a fitness (specify at least two metrics for a multiobjective
algorithm). The optimization result depends on the accuracy of the power
measurment. The sysfs-powercap-rapl metric correlates strongly with the
actual system power consumption on Intel processors since Haswell, see An
Energy Efficiency Feature Survey of the Intel Haswell
Processor.
Individuals are made of different instruction groups and their ratios to one
another. Without specifying the --run-instruction-groups option, preselected
instruction groups will be used for optimization. Setting this option allows
the user to select different instruction group, e.g. for optimizing FIRESTARTER
on a not yet optimized microarchitecture. The format of this is the same as
shown by -a | --avail. All available instruction groups can be listed with
--list-instruction-groups.
The number of individuals per generation (--individuals) and the number of
generations (--generation) are both set 20 per default.
Before the optimization runs, a user-defined period of preheating of the CPU is
carried out. Option --preheat defaults to 240 seconds.
After the optimization finishes the acquired data will be written to
{HOSTNAME}_${STARTTIME}.json if not specified otherwise with the option
--optimize-outfile. An IPython
Notebook
is provided for basic visualization.
The NSGA2 algorithm, as described in A fast and elitist multiobjective genetic
algorithm: NSGA-II, is a
multiobjective algorithm allowing FIRESTARTER to optimize with two (or more)
metrics. This is relevant because adding the IPC (instruction per cycle) metric
supports the optimization algorithm to converge towards higher power
consumption. Parameters of the algorithm can be tweaked using --nsga2-cr and
--nsga2-m.
Optimize FIRESTARTER with NSGA2 and sysfs-powercap-rapl and perf-ipc metric.
The duration for the evaluation of a setting is 20s. -a | --avail lists the
default instruction groups for the current platform.
FIRESTARTER -t 20 --optimize=NSGA2 --optimization-metric sysfs-powercap-rapl,perf-ipc
If perf-ipc is not available use ipc-estimate
FIRESTARTER -t 20 --optimize=NSGA2 --optimization-metric sysfs-powercap-rapl,ipc-estimate
FIRESTARTER_ONEAPI needs to find certain libraries, which are installed with
the Intel OneAPI toolkits, since some of these libraries cannot be linked statically.
Make sure that they are installed and $LD_LIBRARY_PATH is set-up correctly.
Make also sure that you have the correct drivers for your GPU installed so that
OneAPI can apply work to it.
A detailed description can be found in the following paper. Please cite this if you use FIRESTARTER for scientific work.
Daniel Hackenberg, Roland Oldenburg, Daniel Molka, and Robert Schöne Introducing FIRESTARTER: A processor stress test utility (IGCC 2013)
Additional information: https://tu-dresden.de/zih/forschung/projekte/firestarter.
Daniel Hackenberg < daniel dot hackenberg at tu-dresden.de >
GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 3
FIRESTARTER - A Processor Stress Test Utility Copyright (C) TU Dresden, Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
This program contains a slightly modified version of the implementation of the NSGA2 algorithm from esa/pagmo2 licensed under LGPL or GPL v3.
This program incorporates following libraries asmjit/asmjit licensed under zlib, open-mpi/hwloc licensed under BSD 3-clause, jarro2783/cxxopts licensed under MIT, nlohmann/json licensed under MIT and tud-zih-energy/nitro licensed under BSD 3-clause.