Creating a VM with a GPU

If you don't have the Yandex.Cloud command line interface yet, install and initialize it.

The folder specified in the CLI profile is used by default. You can specify a different folder using the --folder-name or --folder-id parameter.

1. View the description of the CLI command for creating a VM:

   $ yc compute instance create --help
   

2. Prepare a pair of keys (public and private) for accessing the VM over SSH.

3. Select a public image.

   To get a list of available images, run the following command:

   $ yc compute image list --folder-id standard-images
   +----------------------+----------------------------------+-----------------------+----------------------+--------+
   |          ID          |               NAME               |         FAMILY        |     PRODUCT IDS      | STATUS |
   +----------------------+----------------------------------+-----------------------+----------------------+--------+
   ...
   | fdv7ooobjfl3ts9gqp0q | windows-2016-gvlk-gpu-1548913814 | windows-2016-gvlk-gpu | dqnnc72gj2ist3ktjj1p | READY  |
   | fdv4f5kv5cvf3ohu4flt | ubuntu-1604-lts-gpu-1549457823   | ubuntu-1604-lts-gpu   | dqnnb6dc7640c5i968ro | READY  |
   ...
   +----------------------+----------------------------------+-----------------------+----------------------+--------+
   

   For VMs with GPUs, special images of Windows (2016 Datacenter GPU, windows-2016-gvlk-gpu) and Ubuntu (16.04 lts GPU, ubuntu-1604-lts-gpu) are available with NVIDIA drivers installed. To use other images, install the necessary drivers on your own.

4. Create a VM in the default folder. Specify the following parameters:

   • Name of the instance.

     Note

     The VM name is used to generate the FQDN only once, when creating the VM. If the FQDN is important to you, choose an appropriate name for the VM at the creation stage.

   • Availability zone.

   • ID of the platform, gpu-standard-v1 for Intel Broadwell with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100.

   • Number of vCPUs.

   • RAM.

   • Number of GPUs.

   • If necessary, make your VM preemptible with the --preemptible option.

   • Image of the OS. ubuntu-1604-lts-gpu: Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS with CUDA drivers.

   • Public IP. To create a VM without a public IP address, disable the nat-ip-version=ipv4 option.

   For example:

   $ yc compute instance create \
         --name gpu-instance \
         --zone ru-central1-a \
         --platform=gpu-standard-v1 \
         --cores=8 \
         --memory=96 \
         --gpus=1 \
         --network-interface subnet-name=default-ru-central1-a,nat-ip-version=ipv4 \
         --create-boot-disk image-folder-id=standard-images,image-family=ubuntu-1604-lts-gpu \
         --ssh-key ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
   

   This creates a VM named gpu-instance with a single GPU, 8 vCPUs, and 96 GB RAM:

   $ yc compute instance get --full gpu-instance
       ...
       name: gpu-instance
       zone_id: ru-central1-a
       platform_id: gpu-standard-v1
       resources:
         memory: "103079215104"
         cores: "8"
         core_fraction: "100"
         gpus: "1"
       status: RUNNING
       ...
   

To create a VM, use the Create method for the Instance resource.

If you don't have Terraform yet, install it and configure the Yandex.Cloud provider.

1. In the configuration file, describe the parameters of resources that you want to create:

   Note

   If you already have suitable resources, such as a cloud network and subnet, you don't need to describe them again. Use their names and IDs in the appropriate parameters.

   • yandex_compute_instance: Description of the VM:

     • name: VM name.

     • platform_id: ID of the platform, gpu-standard-v1 for Intel Broadwell with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100.

     • resources: The number of vCPU cores and the amount of RAM available to the VM. The values must match the selected platform.

     • boot_disk: Boot disk settings. Specify the ID of the selected image. You can get the image ID from the list of public images.

       For VMs with GPUs, special images of Windows (2016 Datacenter GPU, windows-2016-gvlk-gpu) and Ubuntu (16.04 lts GPU, ubuntu-1604-lts-gpu) are available with NVIDIA drivers installed. To use other images, install the necessary drivers on your own.

     • network_interface: Network settings. Specify the ID of the selected subnet. To automatically assign a public IP address to the VM, set nat = true.

     • metadata: In the metadata, pass the public key for accessing the VM via SSH. For more information, see VM instance metadata.

   • yandex_vpc_network: Description of the cloud network.
   • yandex_vpc_subnet: Description of the subnet that the VM will be connected to.

   Example configuration file structure:

   resource "yandex_compute_instance" "vm-1" {
   
     name        = "vm-with-gpu"
     platform_id = "gpu-standard-v1"
   
     resources {
       cores  = <number of vCPU cores>
       memory = <RAM in GB>
       gpus   = <number of GPUs>
     }
   
     boot_disk {
       initialize_params {
         image_id = "fdv4f5kv5cvf3ohu4flt"
       }
     }
   
     network_interface {
       subnet_id = "${yandex_vpc_subnet.subnet-1.id}"
       nat       = true
     }
   
     metadata = {
       ssh-keys = "<user name>:<SSH key contents>"
     }
   }
   
   resource "yandex_vpc_network" "network-1" {
     name = "network1"
   }
   
   resource "yandex_vpc_subnet" "subnet-1" {
     name       = "subnet1"
     zone       = "<availability zone>"
     network_id = "${yandex_vpc_network.network-1.id}"
   }
   

   For more information about the resources you can create using Terraform, see the provider documentation.

2. Make sure that the configuration files are correct.

   1. In the command line, go to the directory where you created the configuration file.

   2. Run the check using the command:

      $ terraform plan
      

   If the configuration is described correctly, the terminal displays a list of created resources and their parameters. If there are errors in the configuration, Terraform points them out.

3. Deploy the cloud resources.

   1. If the configuration doesn't contain any errors, run the command:

      $ terraform apply
      

   2. Confirm that you want to create the resources.

   Afterwards, all the necessary resources are created in the specified folder. You can check resource availability and their settings in the management console.