This document aims to provide instructions to create a gem5-compatible disk image containing the SPEC 2017 benchmark suite and also to provide necessary configuration files.
Creating a disk-image for SPEC 2017 requires the benchmark suite ISO file. More info about SPEC 2017 can be found at https://www.spec.org/cpu2017/.
In this tutorial, we assume that the file cpu2017-1.1.0.iso contains the SPEC benchmark suite, and we provide the scripts that are made specifically for SPEC 2017 version 1.1.0. Throughout the this document, the root folder is src/spec-2017/. All commands should be run from the assumed root folder.
The layout of the folder after the scripts are run is as follows,
spec-2017/ |___ gem5/ # gem5 folder | |___ disk-image/ | |___ shared/ | |___ spec-2017/ | |___ spec-2017-image/ | | |___ spec-2017 # the disk image will be generated here | |___ spec-2017.json # the Packer script | |___ cpu2017-1.1.0.iso # SPEC 2017 ISO (add here) | |___ configs | |___ system/ | |___ run_spec.py # gem5 run script | |___ vmlinux-4.19.83 # Linux kernel, link to download provided below | |___ README.md
First, to build m5 (required for interactions between gem5 and the system under simuations):
git clone https://gem5.googlesource.com/public/gem5 cd gem5 cd util/m5 scons build/x86/out/m5
We use Packer, an open-source automated disk image creation tool, to build the disk image. In the root folder,
cd disk-image wget https://releases.hashicorp.com/packer/1.6.0/packer_1.6.0_linux_amd64.zip # download the packer binary unzip packer_1.6.0_linux_amd64.zip ./packer validate spec-2017/spec-2017.json # validate the Packer script ./packer build spec-2017/spec-2017.json
gem5 scripts which configure the system and run the simulation are available in configs/. The main script run_spec.py expects following arguments:
usage: run_spec.py [-h] [-l] [-z] kernel disk cpu benchmark size
-h: show this help message and exit.
-l, --no-copy-logs: optional, to not copy SPEC run logs to the host system, logs are copied by default, and are available in the result folder.
-z, --allow-listeners: optional, to turn on GDB listening ports, the ports are off by default.
kernel: required, a positional argument specifying the path to the Linux kernel. This has been tested with version 4.19.83, available at http://dist.gem5.org/dist/develop/kernels/x86/static/vmlinux-4.19.83. Info on building Linux kernels can be found in src/linux-kernels.
disk: required, a positional argument specifying the path to the disk image containing SPEC 2017 benchmark suite.
cpu: required, a positional argument specifying the name of either a detailed CPU model or KVM CPU model.
The available CPU models are,
| cpu | Corresponding CPU model in gem5 |
|---|---|
| kvm | |
| o3 | DerivO3CPU |
| atomic | AtomicSimpleCPU |
| timing | TimingSimpleCPU |
benchmark: required, a positional argument specifying the name of the SPEC 2017 to run. Listed below are valid options:
size: required, a positional argument specifying the input data size. Valid values are test, train, and ref.
As a minimum the following parameters must be specified:
<gem5 X86 binary> --outdir <output directory> configs/run_spec.py <kernel> <disk> <cpu> <mem_sys> <benchmark> <size>
Note: --outdir is a required argument when running the gem5 binary with SPEC 2006.
Status of these benchmarks runs with respect to gem5-20, linux kernel version 4.19.83 and gcc version 7.5.0 can be found here