Compiling DALI from Source

Bare Metal build

Prerequisites

DALI has several open-source dependencies. We keep them in two locations. First of all, the main DALI repository contains a third_party directory, which lists the source code based dependencies. Secondly, we maintain a separate DALI_deps repository, with the links to remaining dependencies. Please refer to the DALI_deps README file for instructions, how to install the dependencies from that repository.

The SHA of the currently used version of DALI_deps can be found in DALI_PROJECT_ROOT/DALI_EXTRA_VERSION.

nvJPEG library, GPU Direct Storage, libjpeg-turbo and libtiff have an unofficial option to disable them.

Required Component

Notes

Linux x64

GCC

clang

clang and python-clang bindings are needed for compile time code generation. The easiest way to obtain them is ‘pip install clang libclang’

NVIDIA CUDA 10.0

nvJPEG library

This can be unofficially disabled. See below.

(Optional) liblmdb

The currently supported version can be check DALI_deps repository.

(Optional) GPU Direct Storage

Only libcufile is required for the build process, and the installed header needs to land in /usr/local/cuda/include directory. For CUDA 11.4 it can be installed as a part of CUDA toolkit.
One or more of the following Deep Learning frameworks:

Note

TensorFlow installation is required to build the TensorFlow plugin for DALI.

Note

Items marked “unofficial” are community contributions that are believed to work but not officially tested or maintained by NVIDIA.

Note

This software uses the FFmpeg licensed code under the LGPLv2.1. Its source can be downloaded from here.

FFmpeg was compiled using the following command line:

./configure \
--prefix=/usr/local \
--disable-static \
--disable-programs \
--disable-doc \
--disable-avdevice \
--disable-swresample \
--disable-postproc \
--disable-w32threads \
--disable-os2threads \
--disable-dct \
--disable-dwt \
--disable-error-resilience \
--disable-lsp \
--disable-mdct \
--disable-rdft \
--disable-fft \
--disable-faan \
--disable-pixelutils \
--disable-autodetect \
--disable-iconv \
--enable-shared \
--enable-avformat \
--enable-avcodec \
--enable-avfilter \
--disable-encoders \
--disable-hwaccels \
--disable-muxers \
--disable-protocols \
--enable-protocol=file \
--disable-indevs \
--disable-outdevs  \
--disable-devices \
--disable-filters \
--disable-bsfs \
--disable-decoder=ipu \
--enable-bsf=h264_mp4toannexb,hevc_mp4toannexb,mpeg4_unpack_bframes && \
# adds "| sed 's/\(.*{\)/DALI_\1/' |" to the version file generation command - it prepends "DALI_" to the symbol version
sed -i 's/\$\$(M)sed '\''s\/MAJOR\/\$(lib$(NAME)_VERSION_MAJOR)\/'\'' \$\$< | \$(VERSION_SCRIPT_POSTPROCESS_CMD) > \$\$\@/\$\$(M)sed '\''s\/MAJOR\/\$(lib$(NAME)_VERSION_MAJOR)\/'\'' \$\$< | sed '\''s\/\\(\.*{\\)\/DALI_\\1\/'\'' | \$(VERSION_SCRIPT_POSTPROCESS_CMD) > \$\$\@/' ffbuild/library.mak \
make

Note

This software uses the libsnd licensed under the LGPLv2.1. Its source can be downloaded from here.

libsnd was compiled using the following command line:

./configure && make

Build DALI

  1. Get DALI source code:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/NVIDIA/DALI
cd DALI

  1. Create a directory for CMake-generated Makefiles. This will be the directory, that DALI’s built in.

mkdir build
cd build

  1. Run CMake. For additional options you can pass to CMake, refer to Optional CMake Build Parameters.

cmake -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..

  1. Build. You can use -j option to execute it in several threads

make -j"$(nproc)"

Install Python Bindings

In order to run DALI using Python API, you need to install Python bindings

cd build
pip install dali/python

Note

Although you can create a wheel here by calling pip wheel dali/python, we don’t really recommend doing so. Such whl is not self-contained (doesn’t have all the dependencies) and it will work only on the system where you built DALI bare-metal. To build a wheel that contains the dependencies and might be therefore used on other systems, follow Using Docker builder - recommended.

Verify the Build (Optional)

Obtain Test Data

You can verify the build by running GTest and Nose tests. To do so, you’ll need DALI_extra repository, which contains test data. To download it follow DALI_extra README. Keep in mind, that you need git-lfs to properly clone DALI_extra repo. To install git-lfs, follow this tutorial.

Set Test Data Path

DALI uses DALI_EXTRA_PATH environment variable to localize the test data. You can set it by invoking:

$ export DALI_EXTRA_PATH=<path_to_DALI_extra>
e.g. export DALI_EXTRA_PATH=/home/yourname/workspace/DALI_extra

Run Tests

DALI tests consist of 2 parts: C++ (GTest) and Python (usually Nose, but that’s not always true). To run the tests there are convenient targets for Make, that you can run after building finished

cd <path_to_DALI>/build
make check-gtest check-python

Building DALI with Clang (Experimental)

Note

This build is experimental. It is neither maintained nor tested. It is not guaranteed to work. We recommend using GCC for production builds.

cmake -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++ -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang  ..
make -j"$(nproc)"

Optional CMake Build Parameters

  • BUILD_PYTHON - build Python bindings (default: ON)

  • BUILD_TEST - include building test suite (default: ON)

  • BUILD_BENCHMARK - include building benchmarks (default: ON)

  • BUILD_LMDB - build with support for LMDB (default: OFF)

  • BUILD_NVTX - build with NVTX profiling enabled (default: OFF)

  • BUILD_NVJPEG - build with nvJPEG support (default: ON)

  • BUILD_NVJPEG2K - build with nvJPEG2k support (default: ON)

  • BUILD_LIBTIFF - build with libtiff support (default: ON)

  • BUILD_FFTS - build with ffts support (default: ON)

  • BUILD_CFITSIO - build with CFITSIO support (default: ON)

  • BUILD_LIBSND - build with libsnd support (default: ON)

  • BUILD_LIBTAR - build with libtar support (default: ON)

  • BUILD_NVOF - build with NVIDIA OPTICAL FLOW SDK support (default: ON)

  • BUILD_NVDEC - build with NVIDIA NVDEC support (default: ON)

  • BUILD_NVML - build with NVIDIA Management Library (NVML) support (default: ON)

  • BUILD_CUFILE - build with GPU Direct Storage support (default: ON)

  • BUILD_NVIMGCODEC - build with NVIDIA nvImageCodec library support (default: ON)

  • VERBOSE_LOGS - enables verbose loging in DALI. (default: OFF)

  • WERROR - treat all build warnings as errors (default: OFF)

  • BUILD_DALI_NODEPS - disables support for third party libraries that are normally expected to be available in the system

Warning

Enabling this option effectively results in only the most basic parts of DALI to compile (C++ core and kernels libraries). It is useful when wanting to use DALI processing primitives (kernels) directly without the need to use DALI’s executor infrastructure.

  • LINK_DRIVER - enables direct linking with driver libraries or an appropriate stub instead of dlopen it in the runtime (removes the requirement to have clang-python bindings available to generate the stubs)

  • BUILD_WITH_ASAN - build with ASAN support (default: OFF).

  • BUILD_WITH_LSAN - build with LSAN support (default: OFF).

  • BUILD_WITH_UBSAN - build with UBSAN support (default: OFF).

To run with sanitizers enabled issue:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ASAN_OPTIONS=symbolize=1:protect_shadow_gap=0 ASAN_SYMBOLIZER_PATH=$(shell which llvm-symbolizer)
LD_PRELOAD=PATH_TO_LIB_ASAN/libasan.so.X PATH_TO_LIB_STDC/libstdc++.so.STDC_VERSION*PATH_TO_BINARY*

Where X depends on used compiler version, for example GCC 10.x uses 6. Tested with GCC 10.2.1, CUDA 12.0
and libasan.6. Any earlier version may not work.

STDC_VERSION used by the system. Usually 6.

  • DALI_BUILD_FLAVOR - Allow to specify custom name suffix (i.e. ‘nightly’) for nvidia-dali whl package

  • (Unofficial) BUILD_JPEG_TURBO - build with libjpeg-turbo (default: ON)

  • (Unofficial) BUILD_LIBTIFF - build with libtiff (default: ON)

Note

DALI release packages are built with the options listed above set to ON and NVTX turned OFF. Testing is done with the same configuration. We ensure that DALI compiles with all of those options turned OFF, but there may exist cross-dependencies between some of those features.

Following CMake parameters could be helpful in setting the right paths:

  • FFMPEG_ROOT_DIR - path to installed FFmpeg

  • NVJPEG_ROOT_DIR - where nvJPEG can be found (from CUDA 10.0 it is shipped with the CUDA toolkit so this option is not needed there)

  • libjpeg-turbo options can be obtained from libjpeg CMake docs page

  • protobuf options can be obtained from protobuf CMake docs page

Cross-compiling for aarch64 Jetson Linux (Docker)

Note

Support for aarch64 Jetson Linux platform is experimental. Some of the features are available only for x86-64 target and they are turned off in this build.

Build the aarch64 Jetson Linux Build Container

docker build -t nvidia/dali:builder_aarch64-linux -f docker/Dockerfile.build.aarch64-linux .

Compile

From the root of the DALI source tree

docker run -v $(pwd):/dali nvidia/dali:builder_aarch64-linux

The relevant python wheel will be in dali_root_dir/wheelhouse