Managing NVIDIA GPU Drivers from the vSphere Client#
After registering NVIDIA GPU Manager for VMware vCenter, you can use the vSphere client to download drivers from NVIDIA Licensing Portal to the NVIDIA GPU Manager drivers repository. After synchronizing the downloaded drivers with vSphere Lifecycle Management (vLCM), you can then install a downloaded driver on an ESXi host. To free storage space in the NVIDIA GPU Manager drivers repository, delete any downloaded drivers that are no longer used.
Note
When you log in to the vSphere client to manage NVIDIA GPU drivers, specify a fully qualified domain name or an IP address in the URL to the vSphere client. To avoid the possibility of a Plugin Access Check Failed error, do not specify the host name of the VMware vCenter Server host. This error occurs if NVIDIA GPU Manager cannot resolve the host name.
Privileges Required for Managing NVIDIA GPU Drivers from the vSphere Client#
Managing NVIDIA GPU drivers from the vSphere client requires the privileges for configuring the vSphere Lifecycle Manager service, managing depots and remediation policies, and managing baselines and baseline groups on VMware vCenter.
Users with vCenter Server administrator privileges have all the privileges required for managing NVIDIA GPU drivers from the vSphere client.
Users without full vCenter Server administrator privileges require the following vCenter Server privileges:
VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager Configuration Privileges
Configure Service
VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager Settings Privileges
Read
Write
VMware vSphere Lifecycle Manager Manage Baseline Privileges
Attach Baseline
Note
When assigning a role created with these privileges to a user, ensure that the Propagate to children option is set.
Creating a Software Downloads API Key#
Automated downloads of NVIDIA software from the NVIDIA Licensing Portal require a software downloads API key for authentication. This key is required for downloading NVIDIA GPU drivers or NVIDIA GPU Manager for VMware vCenter virtual appliance updates.
If you are not already logged in, log in to the NVIDIA Enterprise Application Hub and click NVIDIA LICENSING PORTAL to go to the NVIDIA Licensing Portal.
In the left navigation pane of the NVIDIA Licensing Portal dashboard, click API KEYS.
In the API Key Management window that opens, click CREATE API KEY.
In the Create API Key window that opens, provide the name, type of access, and lifetime of the key, and click CREATE API KEY.
In the Key name text-entry field, type your choice of name for the key.
From the Access type drop-down list, select Software Downloads.
Accept the NVIDIA Software License Agreement for use of the vGPU software.
In the Days until expiration text-entry field, type the lifetime of the key in days or, if you don’t want the key to expire, deselect the Expire this key after a specified number of days? option.
The key is added to the table of API keys in the API Key Management window.
When you’re ready to use the software downloads API key follow the view api key link and copy the key to the clipboard.
Configure the vSphere client with the API key that you created as explained in Configuring the vSphere Client with a Software Downloads API Key.
Configuring the vSphere Client with a Software Downloads API Key#
After creating a software downloads API key, configure the vSphere client with the key before using the client to download and manage NVIDIA GPU drivers. For any NVIDIA GPU Manager for VMware vCenter virtual appliance, you need to configure the API key only once. The key is applied to the vSphere client of every vCenter Server instance with which the appliance is registered.
Ensure that you have created a software downloads API key as explained in Creating a Software Downloads API Key.
Log in to vCenter Server by using the VMware vSphere Client.
For additional information, refer to Log in to Your vCenter Server on the VMware Docs site.
From the vSphere Client menu, choose NVIDIA GPU Manager.
Ensure that you have copied the software downloads API key to the clipboard.
On the Driver Download tab, paste the copied API key into the NVIDIA Licensing Portal API Key text-entry field and click Apply.
If the Driver Download tab displays the message API key is invalid or expired, create another software downloads API key and configure the vSphere client with it.
Downloading and Synchronizing NVIDIA GPU Drivers#
The NVIDIA GPU drivers that you can download from the NVIDIA Licensing Portal depend on the terms of your NVIDIA software entitlements. After downloading the drivers and synchronizing them with vSphere Lifecycle Management (vLCM), you can install a downloaded driver on an ESXi host.
Log in to vCenter Server by using the VMware vSphere Client.
For additional information, refer to Log in to Your vCenter Server on the VMware Docs site.
From the vSphere Client menu, choose NVIDIA GPU Manager.
Optional: Filter the list of available downloads.
You can use any combination of these filters.
From the drop-down list of products, select the product that you are interested in, for example vGPU to select NVIDIA virtual GPU software.
Note
You can select only one product from this list.
From the drop down list of product releases, select the releases that include the guest VM drivers for which you want to find compatible Virtual GPU Manager drivers.
This option filters the list to display product releases in which the Virtual GPU Manager is compatible with the guest VM drivers in the selected product releases.
If you want to display only the most recent Virtual GPU Manager drivers, click LATEST.
If you want to display only Virtual GPU Manager drivers from current long-term support branches (LTSBs), click LTSB.
On the Driver Download tab, select each driver that you want to download and click Download Selected.
If necessary, click Refresh Catalog to update the list of drivers that you can download from the NVIDIA Licensing Portal.
Note
You can select up to a maximum of 10 drivers for a single download.
Because each download is large, you cannot start a new download while another download is in progress.
The Driver Download tab lists drivers that have already been downloaded.
If you select any drivers that have already been downloaded, they are not downloaded again when you click Download Selected.
If all drivers that you select have already been downloaded, no drivers are downloaded when you click Download Selected. Instead, a message is displayed to inform you that all the selected drivers have already been downloaded.
When the download is complete, synchronize the downloaded drivers with vLCM.
From the vSphere Client menu, choose Lifecycle Manager.
On the Lifecycle Manager page, from the ACTIONS menu, choose Sync updates.
Confirm that the downloaded drivers have been synchronized with vLCM.
From the vSphere Client menu, choose Lifecycle Manager.
On the Image Depot tab of the Lifecycle Manager page, click COMPONENTS and confirm that the downloaded drivers appear in the table.
After downloading the drivers and synchronizing them with vLCM, install a downloaded driver on an ESXi host as explained in the following topics on the VMware Docs site:
Deleting Downloaded NVIDIA GPU Drivers#
On the NVIDIA GPU Manager for VMware vCenter virtual appliance, 15 GB of storage is reserved for the NVIDIA GPU Manager drivers repository. To free some storage space, delete unused drivers from the repository.
Log in to vCenter Server by using the VMware vSphere Client.
For additional information, refer to Log in to Your vCenter Server on the VMware Docs site.
From the vSphere Client menu, choose NVIDIA GPU Manager.
Click the Manage Drivers tab, select each downloaded driver that you want to delete, and click DELETE SELECTED DOWNLOADS.
The Manage Drivers tab shows the total number of drivers downloaded to the NVIDIA GPU Manager drivers repository and the total size of the drivers in GB.
Note
Deleting a driver from the NVIDIA GPU Manager drivers repository does not remove the entry for the driver from VLCM.