Enable GPU support (original) (raw)

Compose services can define GPU device reservations if the Docker host contains such devices and the Docker Daemon is set accordingly. For this, make sure you install theprerequisites if you haven't already done so.

The examples in the following sections focus specifically on providing service containers access to GPU devices with Docker Compose. You can use either docker-compose or docker compose commands. For more information, seeMigrate to Compose V2.

GPUs are referenced in a compose.yaml file using thedevice attribute from the Compose Deploy specification, within your services that need them.

This provides more granular control over a GPU reservation as custom values can be set for the following device properties:

• capabilities. This value specifies as a list of strings (eg. capabilities: [gpu]). You must set this field in the Compose file. Otherwise, it returns an error on service deployment.
• count. This value, specified as an integer or the value all, represents the number of GPU devices that should be reserved (providing the host holds that number of GPUs). If count is set to all or not specified, all GPUs available on the host are used by default.
• device_ids. This value, specified as a list of strings, represents GPU device IDs from the host. You can find the device ID in the output of nvidia-smi on the host. If no device_ids are set, all GPUs available on the host are used by default.
• driver. This value is specified as a string, for example driver: 'nvidia'
• options. Key-value pairs representing driver specific options.

Important

You must set the capabilities field. Otherwise, it returns an error on service deployment.

count and device_ids are mutually exclusive. You must only define one field at a time.

For more information on these properties, see theCompose Deploy Specification.

Example of a Compose file for running a service with access to 1 GPU device

Run with Docker Compose:

On machines hosting multiple GPUs, the device_ids field can be set to target specific GPU devices and count can be used to limit the number of GPU devices assigned to a service container.

You can use count or device_ids in each of your service definitions. An error is returned if you try to combine both, specify an invalid device ID, or use a value of count that’s higher than the number of GPUs in your system.

To allow access only to GPU-0 and GPU-3 devices: