How to install the Docker-based Nimbra Edge NVIDIA prerequisites #
If you plan to run transcoding workloads on Docker-based Nimbra Edge video nodes, you may consider using an NVIDIA GPU to accelerate transcoding.
Nimbra Edge requires the NVIDIA drivers and the NVIDIA Container Toolkit to be installed on the host system to utilize NVIDIA GPUs. This guide will walk you through setting up these prerequisites.
Check for presence of NVIDIA GPU #
On Linux, you can check if you have an NVIDIA GPU by running the following command:
lspci | grep -i nvidia
If one is present, you should see an output similar to this, specifying the model of the GPU:
31:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation AD104GL [L4] (rev a1)
Install the NVIDIA drivers #
To install the NVIDIA drivers, you can use the package manager of your Linux distribution.
On Ubuntu, you can install the drivers with the following commands:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install nvidia-driver-XXX-server nvidia-utils-XXX-server -y
Replace XXX with the version of the driver you’d like to install.
The latest version number can be found on the NVIDIA Unix Driver Archive. Look for the latest version labeled as Latest Production Branch Version for Linux and your server’s instruction set. For most cases, this will be Linux AMD64.
For example if the latest version is 580.95.05, XXX would be replaced by 580.
On Debian, the NVIDIA drivers are available in the non-free repository. These sources can be added to your system by running the following commands:
echo "deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm contrib non-free non-free-firmware" > /etc/apt/sources.list
echo "deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security contrib non-free non-free-firmware" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
You can install the drivers with the following commands:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install nvidia-driver -y
Verifying the installation #
After the installation, you can verify that the drivers are installed correctly by running the following command, which should output information about the installed GPU:
nvidia-smi
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 550.90.07 Driver Version: 550.90.07 CUDA Version: 12.4 |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M | Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap | Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
| 0 NVIDIA L4 Off | 00000000:31:00.0 Off | 0 |
| N/A 35C P0 29W / 72W | 1MiB / 23034MiB | 0% Default |
| | | N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|=========================================================================================|
| No running processes found |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
The Nimbra Edge connectit installer will base its decisions on the available devices, which you can verify by running the following command:
ls -1 /dev | grep -i nvidia
If the drivers are installed correctly, you should see output similar to this:
nvidia-caps
nvidia-modeset
nvidia-uvm
nvidia-uvm-tools
nvidia0
nvidiactl
The Nimbra Edge connectit installer requires access to /dev/nvidia-uvm, /dev/nvidia-uvm-tools, /dev/nvidiactl, as well as the actual GPU devices, enumerated as /dev/nvidia0, /dev/nvidia1, etc.
Install the NVIDIA Container Toolkit #
The NVIDIA Container Toolkit allows containers running on the system to request access to the GPU.
To set it up, first follow the installation steps, and then the runtime configuration steps.
Verifying the installation #
You should now be able to run the same commands as earlier, however now inside a container. The following command should output similar information as before:
sudo docker run --rm --runtime=nvidia --gpus all ubuntu nvidia-smi
During installation #
The connectit installer will automatically detect the presence of NVIDIA GPUs.
./connectit install video [...]
If any are found, the installer will display a message similar to this:
Detected Nvidia transcoding accelerator(s)
After installation #
Once you have installed Nimbra Edge, the video appliances will report the presence of GPUs.
- Navigate to the Appliance page and select the desired appliance.
- Click
Appliance Metrics - Under
Details - Transcode accelerator, you will find the GPU metrics for the appliance which, if present, will show the type of accelerator and key metrics.