Proxmox 7.2 - Nvidia vGPU
How to get vGPU’s working with a consumer grade Nvidia GPU in Proxmox 7. A lot has changed since dual coder initial release of his vgpu_unlock code and things got a lot simpler if you have a compatible Nvidia GPU supported by driver 460.73.01. If your GPU is not supported by this driver you’d have to patch and build the driver yourself.
NVIDIA vGPU with the 510 driver
Thanks to the great work of a LIL'pingu in the vgpu unlock discord we can finally use the (at the time of writing) latest NVIDIA GRID driver with the version number 510.73.06 with most consumer GPUs. Personally I have tested the T1000, a turing based card but others from the discord server got it working with a pascal based card as well.
This tutorial assumes you are using a clean install of Proxmox 7.2, or ymmv when using an existing installation. Make sure to always have backups!
The patch included in this repository should work on other linux systems with kernel versions >= 5.13 but I have only tested it on proxmox. If you are not using proxmox, you have to adapt some parts of this tutorial to work for your distribution.
Packages
Make sure to add the community pve repo and get rid of the enterprise repo (you can skip this step if you have a valid enterprise subscription)
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echo "deb http://download.proxmox.com/debian/pve bullseye pve-no-subscription" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pve-enterprise.list
Update and upgrade
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apt update
apt dist-upgrade
We need to install a few more packages like git, a compiler and some other tools.
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apt install -y git build-essential dkms pve-headers mdevctl
Git repos and Rust compiler
First, clone this repo to your home folder (in this case /root/)
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git clone https://gitlab.com/polloloco/vgpu-5.15.git
You also need the vgpu_unlock-rs repo
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cd /opt
git clone https://github.com/mbilker/vgpu_unlock-rs.git
After that, install the rust compiler
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curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh -s -- -y
Now make the rust binaries available in your $PATH (you only have to do it the first time after installing rust)
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source $HOME/.cargo/env
Enter the vgpu_unlock-rs directory and compile the library. Depending on your hardware and internet connection that may take a while
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cd vgpu_unlock-rs/
cargo build --release
Create files for vGPU unlock
The vgpu_unlock-rs library requires a few files and folders in order to work properly, lets create those
First create the folder for your vgpu unlock config and create an empty config file
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mkdir /etc/vgpu_unlock
touch /etc/vgpu_unlock/profile_override.toml
Then, create folders and files for systemd to load the vgpu_unlock-rs library when starting the nvidia vgpu services
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mkdir /etc/systemd/system/{nvidia-vgpud.service.d,nvidia-vgpu-mgr.service.d}
echo -e "[Service]\nEnvironment=LD_PRELOAD=/opt/vgpu_unlock-rs/target/release/libvgpu_unlock_rs.so" > /etc/systemd/system/nvidia-vgpud.service.d/vgpu_unlock.conf
echo -e "[Service]\nEnvironment=LD_PRELOAD=/opt/vgpu_unlock-rs/target/release/libvgpu_unlock_rs.so" > /etc/systemd/system/nvidia-vgpu-mgr.service.d/vgpu_unlock.conf
Enabling IOMMU
Note: Usually this isn’t required for vGPU to work, but it doesn’t hurt to enable it. You can skip this section, but if you run into problems later on, make sure to enable IOMMU.
To enable IOMMU you have to enable it in your BIOS/UEFI first. Due to it being vendor specific, I am unable to provide instructions for that, but usually for Intel systems the option you are looking for is called something like “Vt-d”, AMD systems tend to call it “IOMMU”.
After enabling it in your BIOS/UEFI, you also have to enable it in your kernel. Depending on how your system is booting, there are two ways to do that.
If you installed your system with ZFS-on-root and in UEFI mode, then you are using systemd-boot, everything else is GRUB. GRUB is way more common so if you are unsure, you are probably using that.
Depending on which system you are using to boot, you have to chose from the following two options:
GRUB
Open the file `/etc/default/grub` in your favorite editor ```bash nano /etc/default/grub ``` The kernel parameters have to be appended to the variable `GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT`. On a clean installation that line should look like this ``` GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet" ``` If you are using an Intel system, append this after `quiet`: ``` intel_iommu=on iommu=pt ``` On AMD systems, append this after `quiet`: ``` amd_iommu=on iommu=pt ``` The result should look like this (for intel systems): ``` GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet intel_iommu=on iommu=pt" ``` Now, save and exit from the editor using Ctrl+O and then Ctrl+X and then apply your changes: ```bash update-grub ```systemd-boot
The kernel parameters have to be appended to the commandline in the file `/etc/kernel/cmdline`, so open that in your favorite editor: ```bash nano /etc/kernel/cmdline ``` On a clean installation the file might look similar to this: ``` root=ZFS=rpool/ROOT/pve-1 boot=zfs ``` On Intel systems, append this at the end ``` intel_iommu=on iommu=pt ``` For AMD, use this ``` amd_iommu=on iommu=pt ``` After editing the file, it should look similar to this ``` root=ZFS=rpool/ROOT/pve-1 boot=zfs intel_iommu=on iommu=pt ``` Now, save and exit from the editor using Ctrl+O and then Ctrl+X and then apply your changes: ```bash proxmox-boot-tool refresh ```Loading required kernel modules and blacklisting the open source nvidia driver
We have to load the vfio, vfio_iommu_type1, vfio_pci and vfio_virqfd kernel modules to get vGPU working
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echo -e "vfio\nvfio_iommu_type1\nvfio_pci\nvfio_virqfd" >> /etc/modules
Proxmox comes with the open source nouveau driver for nvidia gpus, however we have to use our patched nvidia driver to enable vGPU. The next line will prevent the nouveau driver from loading
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echo "blacklist nouveau" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
Applying our kernel configuration
I’m not sure if this is needed, but it doesn’t hurt :)
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update-initramfs -u -k all
…and reboot
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reboot
Check if IOMMU is enabled
Note: See section “Enabling IOMMU”, this is optional
Wait for your server to restart, then type this into a root shell
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dmesg | grep -e DMAR -e IOMMU
On my Intel system the output looks like this
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[ 0.007235] ACPI: DMAR 0x000000009CC98B68 0000B8 (v01 INTEL BDW 00000001 INTL 00000001)
[ 0.007255] ACPI: Reserving DMAR table memory at [mem 0x9cc98b68-0x9cc98c1f]
[ 0.020766] DMAR: IOMMU enabled
[ 0.062294] DMAR: Host address width 39
[ 0.062296] DMAR: DRHD base: 0x000000fed90000 flags: 0x0
[ 0.062300] DMAR: dmar0: reg_base_addr fed90000 ver 1:0 cap c0000020660462 ecap f0101a
[ 0.062302] DMAR: DRHD base: 0x000000fed91000 flags: 0x1
[ 0.062305] DMAR: dmar1: reg_base_addr fed91000 ver 1:0 cap d2008c20660462 ecap f010da
[ 0.062307] DMAR: RMRR base: 0x0000009cc18000 end: 0x0000009cc25fff
[ 0.062309] DMAR: RMRR base: 0x0000009f000000 end: 0x000000af1fffff
[ 0.062312] DMAR-IR: IOAPIC id 8 under DRHD base 0xfed91000 IOMMU 1
[ 0.062314] DMAR-IR: HPET id 0 under DRHD base 0xfed91000
[ 0.062315] DMAR-IR: x2apic is disabled because BIOS sets x2apic opt out bit.
[ 0.062316] DMAR-IR: Use 'intremap=no_x2apic_optout' to override the BIOS setting.
[ 0.062797] DMAR-IR: Enabled IRQ remapping in xapic mode
[ 0.302431] DMAR: No ATSR found
[ 0.302432] DMAR: No SATC found
[ 0.302433] DMAR: IOMMU feature pgsel_inv inconsistent
[ 0.302435] DMAR: IOMMU feature sc_support inconsistent
[ 0.302436] DMAR: IOMMU feature pass_through inconsistent
[ 0.302437] DMAR: dmar0: Using Queued invalidation
[ 0.302443] DMAR: dmar1: Using Queued invalidation
[ 0.333474] DMAR: Intel(R) Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O
[ 3.990175] i915 0000:00:02.0: [drm] DMAR active, disabling use of stolen memory
Depending on your mainboard and cpu, the output will be different, in my output the important line is the third one: DMAR: IOMMU enabled. If you see something like that, IOMMU is enabled.
NVIDIA Driver
As of the time of this writing (June 2022), the latest available GRID driver is 14.1 with vGPU driver version 510.73.06. You can check for the latest version here. I cannot guarantee that newer versions would work without additional patches, this tutorial only covers 14.1 (510.73.06).
Obtaining the driver
NVIDIA doesn’t let you freely download vGPU drivers like they do with GeForce or normal Quadro drivers, instead you have to download them through the NVIDIA Licensing Portal. You can sign up for a free evaluation to get access to the download page.
The file you are looking for is called NVIDIA-GRID-Linux-KVM-510.73.06-510.73.08-512.78.zip, you can get it from the download portal by downloading version 14.1 for Linux KVM.
After downloading, extract that and copy the file NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-510.73.06-vgpu-kvm.run to your Proxmox host into the /root/ folder
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scp NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-510.73.06-vgpu-kvm.run root@pve:/root/
Patching the driver
Now, on the proxmox host, make the driver executable
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chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-510.73.06-vgpu-kvm.run
And then patch it
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./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-510.73.06-vgpu-kvm.run --apply-patch ~/vgpu-5.15/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-510.73.06-vgpu-kvm.patch
That should output a lot of lines ending with
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Self-extractible archive "NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-510.73.06-vgpu-kvm-custom.run" successfully created.
You should now have a file called NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-510.73.06-vgpu-kvm-custom.run, that is your patched driver.
Installing the driver
Now that the required patch is applied, you can install the driver
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./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-510.73.06-vgpu-kvm-custom.run --dkms
The installer will ask you Would you like to register the kernel module sources with DKMS? This will allow DKMS to automatically build a new module, if you install a different kernel later., answer with Yes.
Depending on your hardware, the installation could take a minute or two.
If everything went right, you will be presented with this message.
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Installation of the NVIDIA Accelerated Graphics Driver for Linux-x86_64 (version: 510.73.06) is now complete.
Click Ok to exit the installer.
To finish the installation, reboot.
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reboot
Finishing touches
Wait for your server to reboot, then type this into the shell to check if the driver install worked
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nvidia-smi
You should get an output similar to this one
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Mon May 30 21:49:13 2022
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 510.73.06 Driver Version: 510.73.06 CUDA Version: N/A |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| 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 T1000 On | 00000000:01:00.0 Off | N/A |
| 0% 36C P8 N/A / 50W | 35MiB / 4096MiB | 0% Default |
| | | N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|=============================================================================|
| No running processes found |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
To verify if the vGPU unlock worked, type this command
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mdevctl types
The output will be similar to this
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0000:01:00.0
nvidia-256
Available instances: 24
Device API: vfio-pci
Name: GRID RTX6000-1Q
Description: num_heads=4, frl_config=60, framebuffer=1024M, max_resolution=5120x2880, max_instance=24
nvidia-257
Available instances: 12
Device API: vfio-pci
Name: GRID RTX6000-2Q
Description: num_heads=4, frl_config=60, framebuffer=2048M, max_resolution=7680x4320, max_instance=12
nvidia-258
Available instances: 8
Device API: vfio-pci
Name: GRID RTX6000-3Q
Description: num_heads=4, frl_config=60, framebuffer=3072M, max_resolution=7680x4320, max_instance=8
---SNIP---
If this command doesn’t return any output, vGPU unlock isn’t working.
Bonus: working nvidia-smi vgpu command
I’ve included an adapted version of the nvidia-smi wrapper script to get useful output from nvidia-smi vgpu.
Without that wrapper script, running nvidia-smi vgpu in your shell results in this output
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No supported devices in vGPU mode
With the wrapper script, the output looks similar to this
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Mon May 30 22:31:22 2022
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 510.73.06 Driver Version: 510.73.06 |
|---------------------------------+------------------------------+------------+
| GPU Name | Bus-Id | GPU-Util |
| vGPU ID Name | VM ID VM Name | vGPU-Util |
|=================================+==============================+============|
| 0 NVIDIA T1000 | 00000000:01:00.0 | 0% |
+---------------------------------+------------------------------+------------+
To install this script, copy the nvidia-smi file from this repo to /usr/local/bin and make it executable
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cp ~/vgpu-5.15/nvidia-smi /usr/local/bin/
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/nvidia-smi
Run this in your shell (you might have to logout and back in first) to see if it worked
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nvidia-smi vgpu
vGPU overrides
Further up we have created the file /etc/vgpu_unlock/profile_override.toml and I didn’t explain what it was for yet. Using that file you can override lots of parameters for your vGPU instances: For example you can change the maximum resolution, enable/disable the frame rate limiter, enable/disable support for CUDA or change the vram size of your virtual gpus.
If we take a look at the output of mdevctl types we see lots of different types that we can choose from. However, if we for example chose GRID RTX6000-4Q which gives us 4GB of vram in a VM, we are locked to that type for all of our VMs. Meaning we can only have 4GB VMs, its not possible to mix different types to have one 4GB VM, and two 2GB VMs.
All of that changes with the override config file. Technically we are still locked to only using one profile, but now its possible to change the vram of the profile on a VM basis so even though we have three GRID RTX6000-4Q instances, one VM can have 4GB or vram but we can override the vram size for the other two VMs to only 2GB.
Lets take a look at this example config override file (its in TOML format)
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[profile.nvidia-259]
num_displays = 1 # Max number of virtual displays. Usually 1 if you want a simple remote gaming VM
display_width = 1920 # Maximum display width in the VM
display_height = 1080 # Maximum display height in the VM
max_pixels = 2073600 # This is the product of display_width and display_height so 1920 * 1080 = 2073600
cuda_enabled = 1 # Enables CUDA support. Either 1 or 0 for enabled/disabled
frl_enabled = 1 # This controls the frame rate limiter, if you enable it your fps in the VM get locked to 60fps. Either 1 or 0 for enabled/disabled
framebuffer = 0x76000000 # VRAM size for the VM. In this case its 2GB
# Other options:
# 1GB: 0x3B000000
# 2GB: 0x76000000
# 3GB: 0xB1000000
# 4GB: 0xEC000000
# 8GB: 0x1D8000000
# 16GB: 0x3B0000000
# These numbers may not be accurate for you, but you can always calculate the right number like this:
# The amount of VRAM in your VM = `framebuffer` + `framebuffer_reservation`
[mdev.00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000100]
frl_enabled = 0
# You can override all the options from above here too. If you want to add more overrides for a new VM, just copy this block and change the UUID
There are two blocks here, the first being [profile.nvidia-259] and the second [mdev.00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000100].
The first one applies the overrides to all VM instances of the nvidia-259 type (thats GRID RTX6000-4Q) and the second one applies its overrides only to one specific VM, that one with the uuid 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000100.
You don’t have to specify all parameters, only the ones you need/want. There are some more that I didn’t mention here, you can find them by going through the source code of the vgpu_unlock-rs repo.
For a simple 1080p remote gaming VM I recommend going with something like this
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[profile.nvidia-259] # choose the profile you want here
num_displays = 1
display_width = 1920
display_height = 1080
max_pixels = 2073600
Spoofing your vGPU instance
You can very easily spoof your virtual GPU to a different card, so that you could install normal quadro drivers instead of the GRID drivers that require licensing.
For that you just have to add two lines to the override config. In this example I’m spoofing my Turing based card to a normal RTX 6000 Quadro card:
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[profile.nvidia-259]
# insert all of your other overrides here too
pci_device_id = 0x1E30
pci_id = 0x1E3012BA # This is not always required, see below
pci_device_id is the pci id from the card you want to spoof to. In my case its 0x1E30 which is the Quadro RTX 6000/8000.
pci_id can be split in two parts: 0x1E30 12BA, the first part 0x1E30 has to be the same as pci_device_id. The second part is the subdevice id. In my case 12BA means its a RTX 6000 card and not RTX 8000.
You can get the IDs from here. Just Ctrl+F and search the card you want to spoof to, then copy the id it shows you on the left and use it for pci_device_id.
After doing that, click the same id, it should open a new page where it lists the subsystems. If there are none listed, you can remove the pci_id entry from above. But if there are some, you have to select the one you want and use its id as the second value for pci_id (see above).
Adding a vGPU to a Proxmox VM
There is only one thing you have to do from the commandline: Open the VM config file and give the VM a uuid.
For that you need your VM ID, in this example I’m using 1000.
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nano /etc/pve/qemu-server/<VM-ID>.conf
So with the VM ID 1000, I have to do this:
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nano /etc/pve/qemu-server/1000.conf
In that file, you have to add a new line at the end:
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args: -uuid 00000000-0000-0000-0000-00000000XXXX
You have to replace XXXX with your VM ID. With my 1000 ID I have to use this line:
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args: -uuid 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000001000
Save and exit from the editor. Thats all you have to do from the terminal.
Now go to the proxmox webinterface, go to your VM, then to Hardware, then to Add and select PCI Device.
You should be able to choose from a list of pci devices. Choose your GPU there, its entry should say Yes in the Mediated Devices column.
Now you should be able to also select the MDev Type. Choose whatever profile you want, if you don’t remember which one you want, you can see the list of all available types with mdevctl types.
Finish by clicking Add, start the VM and install the required drivers. After installing the drivers you can shut the VM down and remove the virtual display adapter by selecting Display in the Hardware section and selecting none (none). ONLY do that if you have some other way to access the Virtual Machine like Parsec or Remote Desktop because the Proxmox Console won’t work anymore.
Enjoy your new vGPU VM :)