Assign a GPU to a virtual machine

To access and control GPUs that are attached to the host system, you must configure the host system to pass direct control of the GPU to the virtual machine (VM).

Before you begin

  • You must enable IOMMU support on the host machine kernel.
    • On an Intel host, you must enable VT-d:
      1. Regenerate the GRUB configuration with the intel_iommu=on and iommu=pt parameters: 
        # grubby --args="intel_iommu=on iommu_pt" --update-kernel DEFAULT
      2. Reboot the host.
    • On an AMD host, you must enable AMD-Vi.

      Note that on AMD hosts, IOMMU is enabled by default, you can add iommu=pt to switch it to pass-through mode:

      1. Regenerate the GRUB configuration with the iommu=pt parameter: 
        # grubby --args="iommu=pt" --update-kernel DEFAULT
        Note

        The pt option only enables IOMMU for devices used in pass-through mode and provides better host performance. However, not all hardware supports the option. You can still assign devices even when this option is not enabled.

      2. Reboot the host.

About this task

Note that directly assigning a GPU to a VM makes it impossible for the host to use the GPU, and for the GPU to be assigned to another VM at the same time.

Note

If you are looking for information about assigning a virtual GPU, see Managing NVIDIA vGPU devices.

Procedure

  1. Prevent the driver from binding to the GPU.
    1. Identify the PCI bus address to which the GPU is attached. 
      # lspci -Dnn | grep VGA
       
      0000:02:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation GK106GL [Quadro K4000] [10de:11fa] (rev a1)
    2. Prevent the host’s graphics driver from using the GPU. To do so, use the GPU PCI ID with the pci-stub driver.

      For example, the following command prevents the driver from binding to the GPU attached at the 10de:11fa bus:

      # grubby --args="pci-stub.ids=10de:11fa" --update-kernel  DEFAULT
    3. Reboot the host.
  2. Optional: If certain GPU functions, such as audio, cannot be passed through to the VM due to support limitations, you can modify the driver bindings of the endpoints within an IOMMU group to pass through only the necessary GPU functions.
    1. Convert the GPU settings to XML and note the PCI address of the endpoints that you want to prevent from attaching to the host drivers.

      To do so, convert the GPU’s PCI bus address to a libvirt-compatible format by adding the pci_ prefix to the address, and converting the delimiters to underscores.

      For example, the following command displays the XML configuration of the GPU attached at the 0000:02:00.0 bus address.

      # virsh nodedev-dumpxml pci_0000_02_00_0
       
      <device>
 <name>pci_0000_02_00_0</name>
 <path>/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:03.0/0000:02:00.0</path>
 <parent>pci_0000_00_03_0</parent>
 <driver>
  <name>pci-stub</name>
 </driver>
 <capability type='pci'>
  <domain>0</domain>
  <bus>2</bus>
  <slot>0</slot>
  <function>0</function>
  <product id='0x11fa'>GK106GL [Quadro K4000]</product>
  <vendor id='0x10de'>NVIDIA Corporation</vendor>
  <iommuGroup number='13'>
   <address domain='0x0000' bus='0x02' slot='0x00' function='0x0'/>
   <address domain='0x0000' bus='0x02' slot='0x00' function='0x1'/>
  </iommuGroup>
  <pci-express>
   <link validity='cap' port='0' speed='8' width='16'/>
   <link validity='sta' speed='2.5' width='16'/>
  </pci-express>
 </capability>
</device>
    2. Prevent the endpoints from attaching to the host driver.

      In this example, to assign the GPU to a VM, prevent the endpoints that correspond to the audio function, <address domain='0x0000' bus='0x02' slot='0x00' function='0x1'/>, from attaching to the host audio driver, and instead attach the endpoints to VFIO-PCI.

      # driverctl set-override 0000:02:00.1 vfio-pci
  3. Attach the GPU to the VM
    1. Create an XML configuration file for the GPU by using the PCI bus address.

      For example, you can create the following XML file, GPU-Assign.xml, by using parameters from the GPU’s bus address.

      <hostdev mode='subsystem' type='pci' managed='yes'>
 <driver name='vfio'/>
 <source>
  <address domain='0x0000' bus='0x02' slot='0x00' function='0x0'/>
 </source>
</hostdev>
    2. Save the file on the host system.
    3. Merge the file with the VM’s XML configuration.

      For example, the following command merges the GPU XML file, GPU-Assign.xml, with the XML configuration file of the System1 VM.

      # virsh attach-device System1 --file /home/GPU-Assign.xml --persistent
       
      Device attached successfully.
      Note

      The GPU is attached as a secondary graphics device to the VM. Assigning a GPU as the primary graphics device is not supported, and Red Hat does not recommend removing the primary emulated graphics device in the VM’s XML configuration.

Results

  • The device is displayed under the <devices> section in VM’s XML configuration.