---
reviewers:
- vishh
content_template: templates/concept
title: Schedule GPUs
---

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{{< feature-state state="beta" for_k8s_version="1.10" >}}

Kubernetes includes **experimental** support for managing AMD and NVIDIA GPUs
(graphical processing units) across several nodes.

This page describes how users can consume GPUs across different Kubernetes versions
and the current limitations.

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## Using device plugins

Kubernetes implements {{< glossary_tooltip text="Device Plugins" term_id="device-plugin" >}}
to let Pods access specialized hardware features such as GPUs.

As an administrator, you have to install GPU drivers from the corresponding
hardware vendor on the nodes and run the corresponding device plugin from the
GPU vendor:

* [AMD](#deploying-amd-gpu-device-plugin)
* [NVIDIA](#deploying-nvidia-gpu-device-plugin)

When the above conditions are true, Kubernetes will expose `amd.com/gpu` or
`nvidia.com/gpu` as a schedulable resource.

You can consume these GPUs from your containers by requesting
`<vendor>.com/gpu` just like you request `cpu` or `memory`.
However, there are some limitations in how you specify the resource requirements
when using GPUs:

- GPUs are only supposed to be specified in the `limits` section, which means:
  * You can specify GPU `limits` without specifying `requests` because
    Kubernetes will use the limit as the request value by default.
  * You can specify GPU in both `limits` and `requests` but these two values
    must be equal.
  * You cannot specify GPU `requests` without specifying `limits`.
- Containers (and Pods) do not share GPUs. There's no overcommitting of GPUs.
- Each container can request one or more GPUs. It is not possible to request a
  fraction of a GPU.

Here's an example:

```yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: cuda-vector-add
spec:
  restartPolicy: OnFailure
  containers:
    - name: cuda-vector-add
      # https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/v1.7.11/test/images/nvidia-cuda/Dockerfile
      image: "k8s.gcr.io/cuda-vector-add:v0.1"
      resources:
        limits:
          nvidia.com/gpu: 1 # requesting 1 GPU
```

### Deploying AMD GPU device plugin

The [official AMD GPU device plugin](https://github.com/RadeonOpenCompute/k8s-device-plugin)
has the following requirements:

- Kubernetes nodes have to be pre-installed with AMD GPU Linux driver.

To deploy the AMD device plugin once your cluster is running and the above
requirements are satisfied:
```shell
kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RadeonOpenCompute/k8s-device-plugin/v1.10/k8s-ds-amdgpu-dp.yaml
```

You can report issues with this third-party device plugin by logging an issue in
[RadeonOpenCompute/k8s-device-plugin](https://github.com/RadeonOpenCompute/k8s-device-plugin).

### Deploying NVIDIA GPU device plugin

There are currently two device plugin implementations for NVIDIA GPUs:

#### Official NVIDIA GPU device plugin

The [official NVIDIA GPU device plugin](https://github.com/NVIDIA/k8s-device-plugin)
has the following requirements:

- Kubernetes nodes have to be pre-installed with NVIDIA drivers.
- Kubernetes nodes have to be pre-installed with [nvidia-docker 2.0](https://github.com/NVIDIA/nvidia-docker)
- Kubelet must use Docker as its container runtime
- `nvidia-container-runtime` must be configured as the [default runtime](https://github.com/NVIDIA/k8s-device-plugin#preparing-your-gpu-nodes)
  for Docker, instead of runc.
- The version of the NVIDIA drivers must match the constraint ~= 361.93

To deploy the NVIDIA device plugin once your cluster is running and the above
requirements are satisfied:

```shell
kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NVIDIA/k8s-device-plugin/1.0.0-beta4/nvidia-device-plugin.yml
```

You can report issues with this third-party device plugin by logging an issue in
[NVIDIA/k8s-device-plugin](https://github.com/NVIDIA/k8s-device-plugin).

#### NVIDIA GPU device plugin used by GCE

The [NVIDIA GPU device plugin used by GCE](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/container-engine-accelerators/tree/master/cmd/nvidia_gpu)
doesn't require using nvidia-docker and should work with any container runtime
that is compatible with the Kubernetes Container Runtime Interface (CRI). It's tested
on [Container-Optimized OS](https://cloud.google.com/container-optimized-os/)
and has experimental code for Ubuntu from 1.9 onwards.

You can use the following commands to install the NVIDIA drivers and device plugin:

```shell
# Install NVIDIA drivers on Container-Optimized OS:
kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/container-engine-accelerators/stable/daemonset.yaml

# Install NVIDIA drivers on Ubuntu (experimental):
kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/container-engine-accelerators/stable/nvidia-driver-installer/ubuntu/daemonset.yaml

# Install the device plugin:
kubectl create -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/release-1.14/cluster/addons/device-plugins/nvidia-gpu/daemonset.yaml
```

You can report issues with using or deploying this third-party device plugin by logging an issue in
[GoogleCloudPlatform/container-engine-accelerators](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/container-engine-accelerators).

Google publishes its own [instructions](https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine/docs/how-to/gpus) for using NVIDIA GPUs on GKE .

## Clusters containing different types of GPUs

If different nodes in your cluster have different types of GPUs, then you
can use [Node Labels and Node Selectors](/docs/tasks/configure-pod-container/assign-pods-nodes/)
to schedule pods to appropriate nodes.

For example:

```shell
# Label your nodes with the accelerator type they have.
kubectl label nodes <node-with-k80> accelerator=nvidia-tesla-k80
kubectl label nodes <node-with-p100> accelerator=nvidia-tesla-p100
```

## Automatic node labelling {#node-labeller}

If you're using AMD GPU devices, you can deploy
[Node Labeller](https://github.com/RadeonOpenCompute/k8s-device-plugin/tree/master/cmd/k8s-node-labeller).
Node Labeller is a {{< glossary_tooltip text="controller" term_id="controller" >}} that automatically
labels your nodes with GPU device properties.

At the moment, that controller can add labels for:

* Device ID (-device-id)
* VRAM Size (-vram)
* Number of SIMD (-simd-count)
* Number of Compute Unit (-cu-count)
* Firmware and Feature Versions (-firmware)
* GPU Family, in two letters acronym (-family)
  * SI - Southern Islands
  * CI - Sea Islands
  * KV - Kaveri
  * VI - Volcanic Islands
  * CZ - Carrizo
  * AI - Arctic Islands
  * RV - Raven

```shell
kubectl describe node cluster-node-23
```

```
    Name:               cluster-node-23
    Roles:              <none>
    Labels:             beta.amd.com/gpu.cu-count.64=1
                        beta.amd.com/gpu.device-id.6860=1
                        beta.amd.com/gpu.family.AI=1
                        beta.amd.com/gpu.simd-count.256=1
                        beta.amd.com/gpu.vram.16G=1
                        beta.kubernetes.io/arch=amd64
                        beta.kubernetes.io/os=linux
                        kubernetes.io/hostname=cluster-node-23
    Annotations:        kubeadm.alpha.kubernetes.io/cri-socket: /var/run/dockershim.sock
                        node.alpha.kubernetes.io/ttl: 0
    …
```

With the Node Labeller in use, you can specify the GPU type in the Pod spec:

```yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: cuda-vector-add
spec:
  restartPolicy: OnFailure
  containers:
    - name: cuda-vector-add
      # https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/blob/v1.7.11/test/images/nvidia-cuda/Dockerfile
      image: "k8s.gcr.io/cuda-vector-add:v0.1"
      resources:
        limits:
          nvidia.com/gpu: 1
  nodeSelector:
    accelerator: nvidia-tesla-p100 # or nvidia-tesla-k80 etc.
```

This will ensure that the Pod will be scheduled to a node that has the GPU type
you specified.

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