chore: add benchmarks for serializing a dummy program

[TomAFrench]

Description

Problem*

Resolves

Summary*

This PR adds some benchmarks for serializing a (not particularly realistic) ACIR program to give a sense of how this scales with the number of opcodes in a program. As part of this I've fixed some issues in the existing benchmarks which prevented good flamegraphs being generated on linux.

I've also smoothed out the experience for creating flamegraphs with new scripts

1. run sudo ./scripts/benchmark_start.sh
2. cargo bench --bench serialization -- --profile-time=10
3. run sudo ./scripts/benchmark_stop.sh

The flamegraphs for all of the serialization benchmarks will then be stored in target/criterion/<benchmark_name>/profile

The scripts to start and stop benchmarking disable/enable some kernel settings which improve profiling performance at the expense of security.

Additional Context

Documentation*

Check one:

• No documentation needed.
• Documentation included in this PR.
• [For Experimental Features] Documentation to be submitted in a separate PR.

PR Checklist*

• I have tested the changes locally.
• I have formatted the changes with Prettier and/or cargo fmt on default settings.

[vezenovm]

2. cargo bench --bench serialization -- --profile-time=10

Noting this has to be done from the acir package.

[vezenovm]

I can't seem to run the provided scripts on my SSH box even though I have sudo access. Is there anything I have to run before in order to run these scripts?

[TomAFrench]

Nothing I can think of, but I've installed stuff for profiling in the past so maybe? What error message are you getting?

[TomAFrench]

It's also possible that it's a mac thing?

[vezenovm]

It's also possible that it's a mac thing?

I'm on mainframe I get:

tee: /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_paranoid: Permission denied
-1

Let me try on mac

[vezenovm]

With mac I get:

tee: /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_paranoid: No such file or directory
-1

[vezenovm]

I'm on mainframe

I tried to change benchmark_start.sh to this: sudo sysctl -w kernel.perf_event_paranoid=-1, but I get a similar error.

sysctl: permission denied on key "kernel.perf_event_paranoid", ignoring
kernel.perf_event_paranoid = -1

[TomAFrench]

I'm on mainframe I get:

tee: /proc/sys/kernel/perf_event_paranoid: Permission denied
-1

Ah yeah, sorry I left the sudos off of the commands. We're mucking with kernel security stuff here so definitely needs a sudo.

I'm not sure what the equivalent is for these commands on mac.

[vezenovm]

Ah yeah, sorry I left the sudos off of the commands. We're mucking with kernel security stuff here so definitely needs a sudo.

I tried calling ./scripts/benchmark_start.sh with a sudo and I get that. I also see a sudo when calling the command in the script?

[vezenovm]

This is not really a blocker as I can still run the cargo bench but just letting you know I'm having trouble running the script

[TomAFrench]

Do we even have sudo access on the mainframe? I doubt that we're going to be able to call that on there.

[vezenovm]

Do we even have sudo access on the mainframe? I doubt that we're going to be able to call that on there.

With the new ssh-box I was told that we do have sudo access. But perhaps with the kernels it is still restricted