ASCT install guide

Author: jasonrandrews

content/install-guides/asct.md

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+---
+title: Arm System Characterization Tool
+
+draft: true
+
+additional_search_terms:
+- ASCT
+- Neoverse
+- benchmarking
+- performance analysis
+- memory latency
+- memory bandwidth
+- storage performance
+
+minutes_to_complete: 15
+
+test_maintenance: false
+
+# No official documentation 
+official_docs: https://learn.arm.com/install-guides/
+
+author: Jason Andrews
+
+### PAGE SETUP
+weight: 1                       # Defines page ordering. Must be 1 for first (or only) page.
+tool_install: true              # Set to true to be listed in main selection page, else false
+multi_install: false            # Set to true if first page of multi-page article, else false
+multitool_install_part: false   # Set to true if a sub-page of a multi-page article, else false
+layout: installtoolsall         # DO NOT MODIFY. Always true for tool install articles
+---
+
+The Arm System Characterization Tool (ASCT) is a command-line utility for running low-level benchmarks, diagnostic scripts, and system tests to analyze and debug performance on Arm-based platforms. ASCT provides a standardized environment for evaluating key hardware characteristics and is especially suited for platform bring-up, system tuning, and architectural comparison tasks.
+
+ASCT provides capabilities for:
+- Memory latency and bandwidth benchmarking across NUMA nodes
+- Storage I/O performance testing
+- System hardware and software configuration reporting
+- Core-to-core latency measurements
+- Cache hierarchy mapping through sweep operations
+
+ASCT is available for Linux on Arm (AArch64) systems and requires Python 3.10 or later.
+
+## What should I do before installing ASCT?
+
+ASCT requires a Linux system running on Arm hardware. Confirm you are using an Arm computer with 64-bit Linux by running:
+
+```bash
+uname -m
+```
+
+The output should be:
+
+```output
+aarch64
+```
+
+If you see a different result, you are not using an Arm computer running 64-bit Linux.
+
+### Install prerequisites
+
+Before installing ASCT, ensure you have the required system packages:
+
+```bash
+sudo apt update
+sudo apt install python3 python3-pip python-is-python3 gcc make numactl fio linux-tools-generic linux-tools-$(uname -r) -y
+```
+
+These packages are required for:
+- `python3` - Python 3.10 or later for running ASCT
+- `gcc` and `make` - For compiling benchmark components
+- `numactl` - For NUMA-aware memory benchmarks
+- `fio` - Version 3.36 or later for storage benchmarks
+- `linux-tools-generic` and `linux-tools-$(uname -r)` - Linux Perf for performance analysis
+
+For more information about installing Perf on different Linux distributions, see the [Perf install guide](/install-guides/perf/).
+
+## How do I download and install ASCT?
+
+ASCT is distributed as a Python package and requires Python 3.10 or later.
+
+### Download ASCT
+
+Download the latest ASCT release from the [artifacts.tools.arm.com](https://artifacts.tools.arm.com/asct/dist/) page.
+
+For example, to download version 0.4.1:
+
+```bash
+wget https://artifacts.tools.arm.com/asct/dist/0.4.1/asct-0.4.1+a304bc8.tar.gz
+```
+
+### How do I install ASCT using uv?
+
+The recommended installation method uses [uv](https://github.com/astral-sh/uv), a fast Python package installer. First, install `uv`:
+
+```bash
+curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
+```
+
+Install ASCT system-wide using:
+
+```bash
+UV_TOOL_BIN_DIR=/usr/local/bin sudo -E $(which uv) tool install asct-0.4.1+a304bc8.tar.gz
+```
+
+This installs ASCT to `/usr/local/bin` making it available system-wide. Installing to `/usr/local/bin` instead of the default `~/.local/bin` allows you to run ASCT with `sudo`, which is required for some benchmarks to access system resources and configure huge pages.
+
+### How do I verify that ASCT is installed?
+
+After installing ASCT, verify the installation by checking the version:
+
+```bash
+asct version
+```
+
+The output is similar to:
+
+```output
+ASCT 0.4.1+a304bc8
+```
+
+You can also display the help information:
+
+```bash
+asct --help
+```
+
+The output displays available commands and benchmarks.
+
+## How do I use ASCT?
+
+ASCT provides several commands for benchmarking and system analysis, including `run`, `system-info`, `list`, `diff`, and `sysreg`. 
+
+Some benchmarks require `sudo` or root privileges to configure huge pages and access certain system information. You can run ASCT without `sudo`, but some benchmarks might be unavailable or limited in functionality.
+
+### Get system information
+
+To generate a system information report:
+
+```bash
+sudo asct system-info
+```
+
+To save the system information in JSON format:
+
+```bash
+sudo asct system-info --format json --output-dir my_output
+```
+
+### List available benchmarks
+
+To see all available benchmarks and their associated keywords:
+
+```bash
+asct list
+```
+
+### Run benchmarks
+
+To run the default set of benchmarks:
+
+```bash
+sudo asct run
+```
+
+To run all available benchmarks (including optional ones):
+
+```bash
+sudo asct run all
+```
+
+To run specific benchmarks by name:
+
+```bash
+sudo asct run latency-sweep idle-latency
+```
+
+Each benchmark has associated keywords that describe its characteristics. You can use these keywords to run groups of related benchmarks without specifying each one individually.
+
+To run all benchmarks tagged with the `memory` keyword:
+
+```bash
+sudo asct run memory
+```
+
+To run all benchmarks tagged with both `latency` and `bandwidth` keywords:
+
+```bash
+sudo asct run latency bandwidth
+```
+
+Common keywords include `memory`, `storage`, `latency`, `bandwidth`, `sweep`, and `long-runtime`. Use `asct list` to see which keywords are associated with each benchmark.
+
+To exclude benchmarks by keyword, prepend the keyword with the `^` character:
+
+```bash
+sudo asct run all ^bandwidth
+```
+
+This runs all benchmarks except those tagged with the `bandwidth` keyword.
+
+To save benchmark results in CSV format:
+
+```bash
+sudo asct run --format csv --output-dir results
+```
+
+By default, ASCT saves output in a directory named `data.<YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_microseconds>` in the current working directory. Use `--output-dir` to specify a custom location.
+
+### Compare results
+
+To compare results from multiple ASCT runs:
+
+```bash
+asct diff --output-dir results1 --output-dir results2
+```
+
+## What are the available benchmarks?
+
+ASCT includes several categories of benchmarks:
+
+Memory benchmarks:
+- `latency-sweep` (`ls`) - Measures memory latency across data sizes from 128 bytes to 1 GiB, revealing cache hierarchy transitions. Uses 1 GiB huge pages to reduce TLB impact. Calculates optimal data sizes for L1, L2, LLC, and DRAM.
+- `idle-latency` (`il`) - Reports a matrix of idle memory latency across NUMA nodes
+- `peak-bandwidth` (`pb`) - Measures peak memory bandwidth
+- `cross-numa-bandwidth` (`cnb`) - Measures cross-NUMA node memory bandwidth
+- `bandwidth-sweep` (`bs`) - Sweeps bandwidth by data size to map cache hierarchy
+- `loaded-latency` (`ll`) - Measures memory latency under load conditions (not run by default)
+- `c2c-latency` (`ccl`) - Measures core-to-core communication latency
+
+Storage benchmarks:
+- `storage-request-size-sweep` (`srss`) - Sweeps I/O request sizes to measure performance
+- `storage-io-depth-sweep` (`sids`) - Sweeps I/O queue depths to find optimal settings
+- `storage-process-count-sweep` (`spcs`) - Sweeps process counts to measure scaling
+- `storage-access-pattern-sweep` (`saps`) - Evaluates different workload profiles including sequential and random access (not run by default)
+
+You can filter benchmarks using keywords like `latency`, `bandwidth`, `memory`, `storage`, `sweep`, or `long-runtime`.
+
+## What output formats are supported?
+
+ASCT supports three output formats:
+- `stdout` - Human-readable console output (default)
+- `csv` - Individual CSV files for each benchmark (for example, `benchmark-name.csv`)
+- `json` - Single combined JSON file (`report.json`) containing all results
+
+Specify the format using the `--format` or `-f` option:
+
+```bash
+sudo asct run --format json
+```
+
+## What other options are available?
+
+ASCT provides several additional options:
+
+- `--log-level` or `-L` - Set logging verbosity (debug, info, warning, error, critical)
+- `--log-file` - Save logs to a specific file
+- `--force` - Overwrite existing output directory
+- `--quiet` or `-q` - Disable all output to stdout and stderr
+- `--no-progress-bar` - Use single-line updates instead of animated progress bar
+- `--dry-run` - Show which benchmarks would run without executing them
+- `--no-cache` - Disable cached benchmark data
+- `--clear-cache` - Clear cached benchmark data
+
+## How do I uninstall ASCT?
+
+If you installed ASCT using `uv`, remove it with:
+
+```bash
+sudo -E $(which uv) tool uninstall asct
+```
+
+## Where can I find more information?
+
+Use the built-in help command to get detailed information about any ASCT command:
+
+```bash
+asct help <command>
+```
+
+For example:
+
+```bash
+asct help run
+```