Setup

The TAO Toolkit API service can run on any Kubernetes platform. The two platforms officially supported are AWS EKS and Bare-Metal.

Hardware minimum requirements

1 or more GPU node(s) where all GPUs within a given node match.

• 32 GB system RAM

• 32 GB of GPU RAM

• 8 core CPU

• 1 NVIDIA Discrete GPU: Volta, Turing, Ampere architecture

• 16 GB of SSD space

Software requirement

Before installing Kubernetes, each node in the cluster should be setup with a fresh Ubuntu 18.04 or latest.

No NVIDIA driver

List installed drivers.

            

            
apt list --installed | grep '^nvidia-.*'
        

Remove any installed.

            

            
sudo apt-get remove --purge '^nvidia-.*'
        

No nouveau driver

Blacklist the nouveau driver.

            

            
sudo echo -e "\nblacklist nouveau\noptions nouveau modeset=0\n" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf
        

Regenerate the kernel initramfs.

            

            
sudo update-initramfs -u
        

Reboot.

            

            
sudo reboot
        

SSH Passwordless

Before installing Kubernetes, one needs to setup ssh-passwordless so the node used for driving the installation can run remote commands on each node of your cluster.

First, one must make sure an ssh key has been generated for the local current user.

            

            
[ ! -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa ] && ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096
        

Then, one must allow this user to login as a sudoer user on each node of your cluster.

            

            
ssh-copy-id $USER@node1
        

If the user is not already a sudoer on each node of your cluster, then one must login as root on each node and add the user to the node’s /etc/sudoers file.

            

            
echo "$user ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL" >> /etc/sudoers
        

Kubernetes

We suggest deploying Kubernetes using Kubespray. The most recent tested version is v2.18.0.

First, check /etc/resolv.conf of each node in your cluster and make sure only one (or two) domain is specified as follows.

            

            
cat /etc/resolv.conf

nameserver 127.0.0.53
options edns0 trust-ad
search nvidia.com nvc.nvidia.com
        

Then, swap should be disabled for each node on your cluster.

            

            
sudo swapoff -a
sudo sed -i.bak '/ swap / s/^\(.*\)$/#\1/g' /etc/fstab
        

On your node driving the installation, get a local copy of the Kubespray project.

            

            
git clone https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/kubespray.git
cd kubespray
git checkout v2.18.0
        

Make sure ansible is not already installed from Ubuntu distro.

            

            
sudo apt remove ansible
        

Install dependencies.

            

            
sudo pip3 install -r requirements.txt
        

Create a new inventory.

            

            
cp -rfp inventory/sample inventory/mycluster
        

Customize your inventory. Please use the IP addresse(s) of the node(s) in your cluster.

            

            
declare -a IPS=(172.17.171.248 172.17.171.249 172.17.171.250)
CONFIG_FILE=inventory/mycluster/hosts.yaml python3 contrib/inventory_builder/inventory.py ${IPS[@]}
        

Proceed with the installation of Kubernetes in your cluster.

            

            
ansible-playbook -i inventory/mycluster/hosts.yaml  --become --become-user=root cluster.yml
        

If something went wront, one can undo the cluster installation with:

            

            
ansible-playbook -i inventory/mycluster/hosts.yaml  --become --become-user=root reset.yml
        

After a sucessful installation, one must copy the kube config file for the cluster admin user. Below command implies the installation node is one of your cluster node.

            

            
mkdir ~/.kube
sudo cp /etc/kubernetes/admin.conf $HOME/.kube/config
sudo chown $USER ~/.kube/config
        

Most popular Kubernetes commands are the following. Note the -n option to specify the namespace is optional with default as the default namespace name. The -A option is for all namespaces.

            

            
kubectl get nodes
kubectl get pods -A
kubectl get pods -n default
kubectl get services -n default
kubectl get storageclasses -n default
kubectl get persistentvolumes -n default
kubectl get persistentvolumeclaims -n default
kubectl get pvc -n default
kubectl describe pods tao-toolkit-api -n default
kubectl logs tao-toolkit-api -n default
        

For a more exhaustive cheat sheet, please refer to: https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubectl/cheatsheet/

Helm

Several online sites provide tutorial and cheat sheets for Helm commands, for example: https://www.tutorialworks.com/helm-cheatsheet/

One can install Helm manually with:

            

            
sudo apt-get install helm
        

NVIDIA GPU Operator

One can make sure nodes are schedulable with:

            

            
kubectl get nodes -o name | xargs kubectl uncordon
        

If GPU Operator was previously uninstalled, you might need to run the following before a new install:

            

            
kubectl delete crd clusterpolicies.nvidia.com
        

One can deploy newer gpu-operator with:

            

            
helm repo add nvidia https://nvidia.github.io/gpu-operator
helm repo update
helm install gpu-operator nvidia/gpu-operator --set driver.repository=nvcr.io/nvidia --set driver.version="510.47.03"
        

In case Kubernetes default runtime is containerd, one must add the parameter --set operator.defaultRuntime="containerd" to the above command.

You can wait a few minutes and check that all GPU related pods are in good health, meaning Running or Terminated states:

            

            
kubectl get pods -A
        

If the GPU pods are failing, check once more that no NVIDIA or nouveau drivers are installed on the nodes.

Set Node Labels

List nodes and labels with:

            

            
kubectl get nodes --show-labels
        

Then, set node label with (example):

            

            
kubectl label nodes node1 accelerator=a100
        

NGINX Ingress Controller

One can install the ingress controller with:

            

            
helm repo add ingress-nginx https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx
helm repo update
helm install ingress-nginx ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx
        

NFS Server

If you do not have an NFS share already available, below is the proceedure for installing one.

Install the server package.

            

            
sudo apt install nfs-kernel-server
        

Create an Export Directory.

            

            
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/nfs_share
sudo chown -R nobody:nogroup /mnt/nfs_share/
sudo chmod 777 /mnt/nfs_share/
        

Grant access to Client Systems.

            

            
sudo echo "/mnt/nfs_share  *(rw,sync,no_subtree_check)" >> /etc/exports
sudo exportfs -a
sudo systemctl restart nfs-kernel-server
        

Storage Provisioner

Below is an example with local NFS (requires a local NFS server). One must replace the NFS server IP and exported path.

            

            
helm repo add nfs-subdir-external-provisioner https://kubernetes-sigs.github.io/nfs-subdir-external-provisioner/
helm install nfs-subdir-external-provisioner nfs-subdir-external-provisioner/nfs-subdir-external-provisioner \
  --set nfs.server=172.17.171.248 \
  --set nfs.path=/mnt/nfs_share
        

Image Pull Secret for nvcr.io

In this example, one must set his ngc-api-key, ngc-email and deployment namespace.

            

            
kubectl create secret docker-registry 'imagepullsecret' --docker-server='nvcr.io' --docker-username='$oauthtoken' --docker-password='ngc-api-key' --docker-email='ngc-email' --namespace='default'
        

Where:

• ngc-api-key can be obtained from https://catalog.ngc.nvidia.com/ after signing in, by selecting Setup Menu :: API KEY :: Get API KEY :: Generate API Key

• ngc-email is the email one used to sign in above

• namespace is the Kubernetes namespace one uses for deployment, or “default”

Pre-requisite installation on your local machine

Install AWS CLI

Install kubectl

Install eksctl

Install helm

Cluster setup

AWS CLI Configure

            

            
aws configure
        

The ‘Access Key ID’ and ‘Secret Access Key’ are obtained from the csv file which you can download while creating an aws account.

region name: an aws availability zone from here which has the services and instances you like, for example p3.2xlarge ec2 instance is present in us-west-2 and not present in us-west-1

output format: json

Create EC2 Key Pair

Create a ec2 key pair for enabling a ssh connection to the Kubernetes worker nodes

            

            
aws ec2 create-key-pair --key-name key_name --key-type rsa --query "KeyMaterial" --output text > key_name.pem
        

            

            
aws ec2 create-key-pair --key-name ec2_dev_key --key-type rsa --query "KeyMaterial" --output text > ec2_dev_key.pem
        

Change the permission of the pem key

            

            
chmod 400 key_name.pem
        

To confirm the creation of the key login to the AWS console (webpage)

The link for login will be present in the csv file you use to obtain the secret and access key ID for ‘aws configure’

Choose the region appropriately in the top right-hand corner as per the one you used at ‘aws configure’ step

In the top left search box near services and type ‘key pairs’ and select ‘Key Pairs’ associated with EC2 feature.

You should see your key present there, if the creation was successful

EKS Cluster Creation

            

            
eksctl create cluster --name cluster_name --node-type ec2_instance_type --nodes num_worker_nodes \
  --region aws_availability_zone --ssh-access --ssh-public-key key_name
        

            

            
eksctl create cluster --name tao-eks-cluster --node-type p3.2xlarge --nodes 1 \
  --region us-west-2 --ssh-access --ssh-public-key ec2_dev_key
        

It’ll take around 15 min for the cluster creation to complete

You can verify the cluster creation on AWS Console by navigating to ‘Elastic Kubernetes Service’ under AWS Services and then select the ‘Cluster’ feature

You’ll see your cluster name on the webpage

Also, you can go to the ‘EC2’ service and then select ‘Instances’ feature, to see your worker node instance

Configuring Kubernetes pods to access GPU resources

            

            
kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NVIDIA/k8s-device-plugin/master/nvidia-device-plugin.yml
        

Once the daemon set is running on the GPU-powered worker nodes, use the following command to verify that each node has allocatable GPUs.

            

            
kubectl get nodes "-o=custom-columns=NAME:.metadata.name,GPU:.status.allocatable.nvidia\.com/gpu"
        

You should see all the nodes in your cluster with the number of gpu’s for that instance

Software setup

Install NGINX Ingress Controller

Carry out the following commands on your local machine

            

            
helm repo add ingress-nginx https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx
helm repo update
helm install ingress-nginx ingress-nginx/ingress-nginx
        

Set Node Labels

List nodes and labels with:

            

            
kubectl get nodes --show-labels
        

Then, set node label with (example):

            

            
kubectl label nodes node1 accelerator=v100
        

NFS Server

If you do not have an NFS share already available within your cluster, below is the proceedure for installing one on a RH-based EC2 instance. Please plan for enough storage to accomodate all your datasets and model exeriments.

Install the nfs package.

            

            
sudo yum install nfs-utils
sudo systemctl enable --now nfs-server rpcbind
        

Create an Export Directory.

            

            
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/nfs_share
sudo chown -R nobody:nogroup /mnt/nfs_share/
sudo chmod 777 /mnt/nfs_share/
        

Grant access to Client Systems.

            

            
sudo echo "/mnt/nfs_share  *(rw,sync,no_subtree_check)" >> /etc/exports
sudo exportfs -rav
sudo systemctl restart nfs-server
        

Storage Provisioner

Below is an example with local NFS (requires a local NFS server). One must replace the NFS server IP and exported path.

            

            
helm repo add nfs-subdir-external-provisioner https://kubernetes-sigs.github.io/nfs-subdir-external-provisioner/
helm install nfs-subdir-external-provisioner nfs-subdir-external-provisioner/nfs-subdir-external-provisioner \
  --set nfs.server=172.17.171.248 \
  --set nfs.path=/mnt/nfs_share
        

Image Pull Secret for nvcr.io

In this example, one must set his ngc-api-key, ngc-email and deployment namespace.

            

            
kubectl create secret docker-registry 'imagepullsecret' --docker-server='nvcr.io' --docker-username='$oauthtoken' --docker-password='ngc-api-key' --docker-email='ngc-email' --namespace='default'
        

Where:

• ngc-api-key can be obtained from https://catalog.ngc.nvidia.com/ after signing in, by selecting Setup Menu :: API KEY :: Get API KEY :: Generate API Key

• ngc-email is the email one used to sign in above

• namespace is the Kubernetes namespace one uses for deployment, or “default”

Deleting cluster

The following would delete your cluster when no longer needed.

            

            
eksctl delete cluster --name=cluster_name
        

It’ll take around 10 minutes for the cluster and it’s associated services to be deleted