SDK Installation

The section below refers to the installation of the Holoscan SDK referred to as the development stack, designed for the NVIDIA IGX Developer Kits, and for x86_64 Linux compute platforms, ideal for development and testing of the SDK.

• For RDMA Support (RoCE over ConnectX and/or GPUDirect RDMA), follow the instructions in the Enabling RDMA section.

• Additional software dependencies might be needed based on how you choose to install the SDK (see section below).

• Refer to the Additional Setup and Third-Party Hardware Setup sections for additional prerequisites.

Authentication

To access LWS2 installations, you will first need an API Key from NGC. Select NGC Catalog as one of the services. Your API key should begin with nvapi-.

If you plan to only use the Docker container, skip to the installation section. If you plan to install the Debian package or Python wheel, you will first need to configure paywall authentication tools in step 1 below.

1. buildauthcli and authxsentry paywall tools already come installed on IGX OS LWS2 (iGPU and dGPU). For other platforms, visit the NGC NVIDIA Paywall Utilities for LTS portal and manually download the corresponding authxsentry and buildauthcli packages from the File Browser. Then, complete the local setup:

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   sudo mv path/to/authxsentry /usr/bin/authxsentry
   sudo tar -zx path/to/buildauthcli-linux-amd64-v2.0.tar.gz -C "/usr/bin/"
   sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/authxsentry
   sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/buildauth
           

2. On both IGX and x86_64, run authxsentry with the NGC CLI API key you generated above:

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   authxsentry <nvapi-xxx>
   # Successful setup will end with `Login complete.`
           

Installation

We provide multiple ways to install and run the Holoscan SDK:

            

            
docker login nvcr.io
# Username: $oauthtoken
# Password: <NGC API key>
        

            

            
sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/lws2.list >/dev/null <<'EOF'
deb [arch=amd64 trusted=yes] https://disthub.nvidia.com/artifactory/oss-lws-deb-stable jammy main
deb [arch=amd64 trusted=yes] https://disthub.nvidia.com/artifactory/nvaie-lws2-deb-stable lws lws2
EOF
        

            

            
sudo apt update -o Dir::Etc::sourcelist=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/lws2.list
sudo apt install holoscan -o Dir::Etc::sourcelist=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/lws2.list
        

            

            
export PYTHONPATH="/opt/nvidia/holoscan/python/lib"
        

            

            
python -m pip install \
  --index-url https://disthub.nvidia.com/artifactory/api/pypi/nvaie-lws2-pypi-stable/simple \
  --extra-index-url https://disthub.nvidia.com/artifactory/api/pypi/oss-lws2-pypi-stable/simple \
  holoscan~=1.0.3
        

Not sure what to choose?

• The Holoscan container image on NGC is the safest way to ensure all the dependencies are present with the expected versions (including torch 8). It is the simplest way to run the embedded examples, while still allowing you to create your own C++ and Python Holoscan application on top of it. These benefits come with the standard inconvenience that exist when using Docker, such as more complex run instructions for proper configuration. Also, supporting Rivermax or the CLI require more work than the other solutions at this time.

• If you are confident in your ability to manage dependencies on your own in your host environment, the Holoscan Debian package should provide all the capabilities needed to use the Holoscan SDK.

• If you are not interested in the C++ API but just need to work in Python, you can use the Holoscan Python wheels. While they are the easiest solution to get started, you might need additional work to setup your environment with adequate dependencies depending on your needs.

Need more control over the SDK?

The Holoscan SDK source repository is open-source and provides reference implementations as well as infrastructure for building the SDK yourself.