# The `benchmark machine` command

Different Substrate chains can have different hardware requirements.  
It is therefore important to be able to quickly gauge if a piece of hardware fits a chains' requirements.  
The `benchmark machine` command archives this by measuring key metrics and making them comparable.  

Invoking the command looks like this:  
```sh
cargo run --profile=production -- benchmark machine --dev
```

## Output

The output on reference hardware:  

```pre
+----------+----------------+---------------+--------------+-------------------+
| Category | Function       | Score         | Minimum      | Result            |
+----------+----------------+---------------+--------------+-------------------+
| CPU      | BLAKE2-256     | 1023.00 MiB/s | 1.00 GiB/s   | ✅ Pass ( 99.4 %) |
+----------+----------------+---------------+--------------+-------------------+
| CPU      | SR25519-Verify | 665.13 KiB/s  | 666.00 KiB/s | ✅ Pass ( 99.9 %) |
+----------+----------------+---------------+--------------+-------------------+
| Memory   | Copy           | 14.39 GiB/s   | 14.32 GiB/s  | ✅ Pass (100.4 %) |
+----------+----------------+---------------+--------------+-------------------+
| Disk     | Seq Write      | 457.00 MiB/s  | 450.00 MiB/s | ✅ Pass (101.6 %) |
+----------+----------------+---------------+--------------+-------------------+
| Disk     | Rnd Write      | 190.00 MiB/s  | 200.00 MiB/s | ✅ Pass ( 95.0 %) |
+----------+----------------+---------------+--------------+-------------------+
```

The *score* is the average result of each benchmark. It always adheres to "higher is better".  

The *category* indicate which part of the hardware was benchmarked:  
- **CPU** Processor intensive task
- **Memory** RAM intensive task
- **Disk** Hard drive intensive task

The *function* is the concrete benchmark that was run:  
- **BLAKE2-256** The throughput of the [Blake2-256] cryptographic hashing function with 32 KiB input. The [blake2_256 function] is used in many places in Substrate. The throughput of a hash function strongly depends on the input size, therefore we settled to use a fixed input size for comparable results.
- **SR25519 Verify** Sr25519 is an optimized version of the [Curve25519] signature scheme. Signature verification is used by Substrate when verifying extrinsics and blocks.
- **Copy** The throughput of copying memory from one place in the RAM to another.
- **Seq Write** The throughput of writing data to the storage location sequentially. It is important that the same disk is used that will later-on be used to store the chain data.
- **Rnd Write** The throughput of writing data to the storage location in a random order. This is normally much slower than the sequential write.

The *score* needs to reach the *minimum* in order to pass the benchmark. This can be reduced with the `--tolerance` flag.

The *result* indicated if a specific benchmark was passed by the machine or not. The percent number is the relative score reached to the *minimum* that is needed. The `--tolerance` flag is taken into account for this decision. For example a benchmark that passes even with 95% since the *tolerance* was set to 10% would look like this: `✅ Pass ( 95.0 %)`.

## Interpretation

Ideally all results show a `Pass` and the program exits with code 0. Currently some of the benchmarks can fail even on reference hardware; they are still being improved to make them more deterministic.  
Make sure to run nothing else on the machine when benchmarking it.  
You can re-run them multiple times to get more reliable results.

## Arguments

- `--tolerance` A percent number to reduce the *minimum* requirement. This should be used to ignore outliers of the benchmarks. The default value is 10%.
- `--verify-duration` How long the verification benchmark should run.
- `--disk-duration` How long the *read* and *write* benchmarks should run each.
- `--allow-fail` Always exit the program with code 0.
- `--chain` / `--dev` Specify the chain config to use. This will be used to compare the results with the requirements of the chain (WIP).
- [`--base-path`]

License: Apache-2.0

<!-- LINKS -->
[Blake2-256]: https://www.blake2.net/
[blake2_256 function]: https://crates.parity.io/sp_core/hashing/fn.blake2_256.html
[Curve25519]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curve25519
[`--base-path`]: ../shared/README.md#arguments