llama-stack-mirror/docs/source/distributions/self_hosted_distro/nvidia.md

NVIDIA Distribution

The llamastack/distribution-nvidia distribution consists of the following provider configurations.

API	Provider(s)
agents	inline::meta-reference
datasetio	inline::localfs, remote::nvidia
eval	remote::nvidia
inference	remote::nvidia
post_training	remote::nvidia
safety	remote::nvidia
scoring	inline::basic
telemetry	inline::meta-reference
tool_runtime	inline::rag-runtime
vector_io	inline::faiss

Environment Variables

The following environment variables can be configured:

• NVIDIA_API_KEY: NVIDIA API Key (default: ``)
• NVIDIA_APPEND_API_VERSION: Whether to append the API version to the base_url (default: True)
• NVIDIA_DATASET_NAMESPACE: NVIDIA Dataset Namespace (default: default)
• NVIDIA_PROJECT_ID: NVIDIA Project ID (default: test-project)
• NVIDIA_CUSTOMIZER_URL: NVIDIA Customizer URL (default: https://customizer.api.nvidia.com)
• NVIDIA_OUTPUT_MODEL_DIR: NVIDIA Output Model Directory (default: test-example-model@v1)
• GUARDRAILS_SERVICE_URL: URL for the NeMo Guardrails Service (default: http://0.0.0.0:7331)
• NVIDIA_GUARDRAILS_CONFIG_ID: NVIDIA Guardrail Configuration ID (default: self-check)
• NVIDIA_EVALUATOR_URL: URL for the NeMo Evaluator Service (default: http://0.0.0.0:7331)
• INFERENCE_MODEL: Inference model (default: Llama3.1-8B-Instruct)
• SAFETY_MODEL: Name of the model to use for safety (default: meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct)

Models

The following models are available by default:

• meta/llama3-8b-instruct (aliases: meta-llama/Llama-3-8B-Instruct)
• meta/llama3-70b-instruct (aliases: meta-llama/Llama-3-70B-Instruct)
• meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct (aliases: meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct)
• meta/llama-3.1-70b-instruct (aliases: meta-llama/Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct)
• meta/llama-3.1-405b-instruct (aliases: meta-llama/Llama-3.1-405B-Instruct-FP8)
• meta/llama-3.2-1b-instruct (aliases: meta-llama/Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct)
• meta/llama-3.2-3b-instruct (aliases: meta-llama/Llama-3.2-3B-Instruct)
• meta/llama-3.2-11b-vision-instruct (aliases: meta-llama/Llama-3.2-11B-Vision-Instruct)
• meta/llama-3.2-90b-vision-instruct (aliases: meta-llama/Llama-3.2-90B-Vision-Instruct)
• meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct (aliases: meta-llama/Llama-3.3-70B-Instruct)
• nvidia/llama-3.2-nv-embedqa-1b-v2
• nvidia/nv-embedqa-e5-v5
• nvidia/nv-embedqa-mistral-7b-v2
• snowflake/arctic-embed-l

Prerequisites

NVIDIA API Keys

Make sure you have access to a NVIDIA API Key. You can get one by visiting https://build.nvidia.com/. Use this key for the NVIDIA_API_KEY environment variable.

Deploy NeMo Microservices Platform

The NVIDIA NeMo microservices platform supports end-to-end microservice deployment of a complete AI flywheel on your Kubernetes cluster through the NeMo Microservices Helm Chart. Please reference the NVIDIA NeMo Microservices documentation for platform prerequisites and instructions to install and deploy the platform.

Supported Services

Each Llama Stack API corresponds to a specific NeMo microservice. The core microservices (Customizer, Evaluator, Guardrails) are exposed by the same endpoint. The platform components (Data Store) are each exposed by separate endpoints.

Inference: NVIDIA NIM

NVIDIA NIM is used for running inference with registered models. There are two ways to access NVIDIA NIMs:

1. Hosted (default): Preview APIs hosted at https://integrate.api.nvidia.com (Requires an API key)
2. Self-hosted: NVIDIA NIMs that run on your own infrastructure.

The deployed platform includes the NIM Proxy microservice, which is the service that provides to access your NIMs (for example, to run inference on a model). Set the NVIDIA_BASE_URL environment variable to use your NVIDIA NIM Proxy deployment.

Datasetio API: NeMo Data Store

The NeMo Data Store microservice serves as the default file storage solution for the NeMo microservices platform. It exposts APIs compatible with the Hugging Face Hub client (HfApi), so you can use the client to interact with Data Store. The NVIDIA_DATASETS_URL environment variable should point to your NeMo Data Store endpoint.

See the NVIDIA Datasetio docs for supported features and example usage.

Eval API: NeMo Evaluator

The NeMo Evaluator microservice supports evaluation of LLMs. Launching an Evaluation job with NeMo Evaluator requires an Evaluation Config (an object that contains metadata needed by the job). A Llama Stack Benchmark maps to an Evaluation Config, so registering a Benchmark creates an Evaluation Config in NeMo Evaluator. The NVIDIA_EVALUATOR_URL environment variable should point to your NeMo Microservices endpoint.

See the NVIDIA Eval docs for supported features and example usage.

Post-Training API: NeMo Customizer

The NeMo Customizer microservice supports fine-tuning models. You can reference this list of supported models that can be fine-tuned using Llama Stack. The NVIDIA_CUSTOMIZER_URL environment variable should point to your NeMo Microservices endpoint.

See the NVIDIA Post-Training docs for supported features and example usage.

Safety API: NeMo Guardrails

The NeMo Guardrails microservice sits between your application and the LLM, and adds checks and content moderation to a model. The GUARDRAILS_SERVICE_URL environment variable should point to your NeMo Microservices endpoint.

See the NVIDIA Safety docs for supported features and example usage.

Deploying models

In order to use a registered model with the Llama Stack APIs, ensure the corresponding NIM is deployed to your environment. For example, you can use the NIM Proxy microservice to deploy meta/llama-3.2-1b-instruct.

Note: For improved inference speeds, we need to use NIM with fast_outlines guided decoding system (specified in the request body). This is the default if you deployed the platform with the NeMo Microservices Helm Chart.

# URL to NeMo NIM Proxy service
export NEMO_URL="http://nemo.test"

curl --location "$NEMO_URL/v1/deployment/model-deployments" \
   -H 'accept: application/json' \
   -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
   -d '{
      "name": "llama-3.2-1b-instruct",
      "namespace": "meta",
      "config": {
         "model": "meta/llama-3.2-1b-instruct",
         "nim_deployment": {
            "image_name": "nvcr.io/nim/meta/llama-3.2-1b-instruct",
            "image_tag": "1.8.3",
            "pvc_size": "25Gi",
            "gpu": 1,
            "additional_envs": {
               "NIM_GUIDED_DECODING_BACKEND": "fast_outlines"
            }
         }
      }
   }'

This NIM deployment should take approximately 10 minutes to go live. See the docs for more information on how to deploy a NIM and verify it's available for inference.

You can also remove a deployed NIM to free up GPU resources, if needed.

export NEMO_URL="http://nemo.test"

curl -X DELETE "$NEMO_URL/v1/deployment/model-deployments/meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct"

Running Llama Stack with NVIDIA

You can do this via Conda or venv (build code), or Docker which has a pre-built image.

Via Docker

This method allows you to get started quickly without having to build the distribution code.

LLAMA_STACK_PORT=8321
docker run \
  -it \
  --pull always \
  -p $LLAMA_STACK_PORT:$LLAMA_STACK_PORT \
  -v ./run.yaml:/root/my-run.yaml \
  llamastack/distribution-nvidia \
  --config /root/my-run.yaml \
  --port $LLAMA_STACK_PORT \
  --env NVIDIA_API_KEY=$NVIDIA_API_KEY

Via Conda

INFERENCE_MODEL=meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8b-Instruct
llama stack build --template nvidia --image-type conda
llama stack run ./run.yaml \
  --port 8321 \
  --env NVIDIA_API_KEY=$NVIDIA_API_KEY \
  --env INFERENCE_MODEL=$INFERENCE_MODEL

Via venv

If you've set up your local development environment, you can also build the image using your local virtual environment.

INFERENCE_MODEL=meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8b-Instruct
llama stack build --template nvidia --image-type venv
llama stack run ./run.yaml \
  --port 8321 \
  --env NVIDIA_API_KEY=$NVIDIA_API_KEY \
  --env INFERENCE_MODEL=$INFERENCE_MODEL

Example Notebooks

For examples of how to use the NVIDIA Distribution to run inference, fine-tune, evaluate, and run safety checks on your LLMs, you can reference the example notebooks in docs/notebooks/nvidia.