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Creating a VM with a GPU

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Updated at October 30, 2024

This section explains how to create a VM with a GPU. For more information about VM configurations, see Graphics accelerators (GPUs).

By default, the cloud has a zero quota for creating VMs with GPUs. To change the quota, contact technical support.

You can create VMs on Intel Broadwell with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100, Intel Cascade Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100, AMD EPYC™ with NVIDIA® Ampere® A100 and Intel Ice Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® T4 in the ru-central1-a and ru-central1-b availability zones.

  1. In the management console, select the folder to create your VM in.

  2. In the list of services, select Compute Cloud.

  3. In the left-hand panel, select Virtual machines.

  4. Click Create virtual machine.

  5. Select one of the GPU-oriented images and OS version under Boot disk image in the Marketplace tab.

    For VMs with GPUs, you can use the following special images of operating systems with NVIDIA drivers:

    Intel Broadwell with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100 and Intel Cascade Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100
    Intel Ice Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® T4
    AMD EPYC™ with NVIDIA® Ampere® A100

    We recommend using a standard image from Yandex Cloud. You can also install the drivers on another standard image yourself or create a custom image with pre-installed drivers.

  6. Under Location, select an availability zone to place your VM in.

  7. (Optional) Configure the boot disk under Disks and file storages:

    • Select the disk type.

    • Specify the required disk size.

    • (Optional) To encrypt a boot disk or a secondary disk, under Disks and file storages, click to the right of the disk name and set encryption parameters for the disk:

      • Select Encrypted disk.
      • In the KMS key field, select the key to encrypt the disk with. To create a new key, click Create new key.
      • In the Service account field, select a service account with the kms.keys.encrypterDecrypter role for the specified key. To create a service account, click Create new account.

      The encryption feature in Compute Cloud is currently at the Preview stage. To access it, open the resource creation page and click Request access under Encryption or contact support.

      If you deactivate the key used to encrypt a disk or snapshot, access to the data will be suspended until you reactivate the key.

      Alert

      If you destroy the key or its version used to encrypt a disk or snapshot, access to the data will be irrevocably lost. Learn more in Destroying key versions.

      If you are creating a VM from an existing boot disk, update the settings of that disk in the Custom tab under Boot disk image at the top of the form.

  8. (Optional) Add a secondary disk:

    • Under Disks and file storages, click Add

    • In the window that opens, select Disk. You can select an existing disk or create a new one, either empty or from a snapshot / image.

      For example, to create a new empty disk:

      • Select Create new.
      • In the Contents field, select Empty.
      • Specify the disk name.
      • Select the disk type.
      • Specify the required disk size and block size.
      • (Optional) Enable the Additional option in the Delete along with the virtual machine field if you need to automatically delete this disk when deleting the VM.
      • Click Add disk.

  9. (Optional) Connect a file storage:

    • Under Disks and file storages, click Add.

      • In the window that opens, select File storage and select the storage you want to connect from the list.

        If you do not have any file storages, click Create file storage to create a new one.

      • Click Add file storage.

  10. Under Computing resources:

    • Go to the GPU tab.

    • Choose a platform:

      • Intel Broadwell with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100
      • Intel Cascade Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100
      • AMD EPYC™ with NVIDIA® Ampere® A100
      • Intel Ice Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® T4

    • Select one of the available configurations with the required GPUs, vCPUs, and amount of RAM.

  11. Under Network settings:

    • In the Subnet field, enter the ID of a subnet in the new VM’s availability zone. Alternatively, you can select a cloud network from the list.

      • Each network must have at least one subnet. If there is no subnet, create one by selecting Create subnet.

      • If you do not have a network, click Create network to create one:

        • In the window that opens, enter the network name and select the folder to host the network.
        • (Optional) Select the Create subnets option to automatically create subnets in all availability zones.
        • Click Create network.

    • In the Public IP field, choose a method for assigning an IP address:

      • Auto: Assign a random IP address from the Yandex Cloud IP address pool. In this case, you can enable DDoS protection using the option below.
      • List: Select a public IP address from the list of previously reserved static addresses. For more information, see Converting a dynamic public IP address to static.
      • No address: Do not assign a public IP address.

    • Select the appropriate security groups. If you leave this field empty, the default security group will be assigned to the VM.

    • Expand the Additional section and select a method for internal IP address assignment in the Internal IPv4 address field:

      • Auto: Assign a random IP address from the pool of IP addresses available in the selected subnet.
      • List: Select a private IP address from the list of previously reserved IP addresses. Click Reserve to reserve a private IP address in the selected subnet if needed.
      • Enable the DDoS protection option, if needed. The option is available if you previously selected the automatic IP assignment method in the public address settings.

    • (Optional) Create records for the VM in the DNS zone:

      • Expand the DNS settings for internal addresses section and click Add record.
      • Specify the zone, FQDN, and TTL for the record. When setting the FQDN, you can select Detect automatically for the zone.
        You can add multiple records to internal DNS zones. For more information, see Cloud DNS integration with Compute Cloud.
      • To create another record, click Add record.

    If you want to attach an additional network interface to your VM, click Add network interface and repeat the settings from this step for the new interface. You can add up to eight network interfaces to a single VM.

  12. Under Access, specify the data for access to the VM:

    • (Optional) Enable VM access via OS Login. The option is available for Linux images from Cloud Marketplace with OS Login in their names.

    • Enter the username into the Login field.

      Alert

      Do not use root or other usernames reserved by the OS. To perform operations requiring superuser permissions, use the sudo command.

    • In the SSH key field, paste the contents of the public key file. You need to create a key pair for the SSH connection yourself. To learn how, see Connecting to a VM via SSH.

    If you want to add several users with SSH keys to the VM at the same time, specify these users' data under Metadata. You can also use metadata to install additional software on a VM when creating it.

    In public Linux images provided by Yandex Cloud, the functionality of connecting over SSH using login and password is disabled by default.

  13. Under General information, specify the VM name:

    • The name must be from 3 to 63 characters long.
    • It may contain lowercase Latin letters, numbers, and hyphens.
    • The first character must be a letter and the last character cannot be a hyphen.

    Note

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

  14. Under Additional:

  15. Click Create VM.

The virtual machine will appear in the list.

If you do not 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 to create a VM:

    yc compute instance create --help

  2. Prepare a key pair (public and private keys) for SSH access to the VM.

  3. Select a public image.

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

    yc compute image list --folder-id standard-images

    Result:

    +----------------------+----------------------------------+-----------------------+----------------------+--------+
|          ID          |               NAME               |         FAMILY        |     PRODUCT IDS      | STATUS |
+----------------------+----------------------------------+-----------------------+----------------------+--------+
...
| fdv7ooobjfl3******** | windows-2016-gvlk-gpu-1548913814 | windows-2016-gvlk-gpu | dqnnc72gj2is******** | READY  |
| fdv4f5kv5cvf******** | ubuntu-1604-lts-gpu-1549457823   | ubuntu-1604-lts-gpu   | dqnnb6dc7640******** | READY  |
...
+----------------------+----------------------------------+-----------------------+----------------------+--------+

    For VMs with GPUs, you can use the following special images of operating systems with NVIDIA drivers:

    Intel Broadwell with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100 and Intel Cascade Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100
    Intel Ice Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® T4
    AMD EPYC™ with NVIDIA® Ampere® A100

    We recommend using a standard image from Yandex Cloud. You can also install the drivers on another standard image yourself or create a custom image with pre-installed drivers.

  4. Create a VM in the default folder:

    yc compute instance create \
  --name gpu-instance \
  --zone ru-central1-a \
  --platform=gpu-standard-v3 \
  --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_ed25519.pub

    Where:

    • --name: VM name.

      Note

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

    • --zone: Availability zone.

      You can create VMs on Intel Broadwell with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100, Intel Cascade Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100, AMD EPYC™ with NVIDIA® Ampere® A100 and Intel Ice Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® T4 in the ru-central1-a and ru-central1-b availability zones.

    • --platform: Platform ID:

      • gpu-standard-v1 for Intel Broadwell with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100.
      • gpu-standard-v2 for Intel Cascade Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100.
      • gpu-standard-v3 for AMD EPYC™ with NVIDIA® Ampere® A100.
      • standard-v3-t4 for Intel Ice Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® T4.

    • --cores: Number of vCPUs.

    • --memory: Amount of RAM.

    • --gpus: Number of GPUs.

    • --preemptible: For a preemptible VM.

    • --network-interface: VM's network interface settings:

      • subnet-name: Name of the selected subnet.
      • nat-ip-version=ipv4: Public IP address. To create a VM without a public IP address, disable this parameter.

      If you want to add multiple network interfaces to the VM, specify the --network-interface parameter as many times as you need. You can add up to eight network interfaces to a single VM.

    • --create-boot-disk: OS image.

      For VMs with GPUs, you can use the following special images of operating systems with NVIDIA drivers:

      Intel Broadwell with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100 and Intel Cascade Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100
      Intel Ice Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® T4
      AMD EPYC™ with NVIDIA® Ampere® A100

      We recommend using a standard image from Yandex Cloud. You can also install the drivers on another standard image yourself or create a custom image with pre-installed drivers.

    • --ssh-key: Path to the file with the public SSH key. The VM will automatically create a user named yc-user for this key.

    Get a description of the created VM:

    yc compute instance get --full gpu-instance

    Result:

    name: gpu-instance
zone_id: ru-central1-a
platform_id: gpu-standard-v3
resources:
  memory: "103079215104"
  cores: "8"
  core_fraction: "100"
  gpus: "1"
status: RUNNING
...

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

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

    resource "yandex_compute_disk" "boot-disk" {
  name     = "<disk_name>"
  type     = "<disk_type>"
  zone     = "<availability_zone>"
  size     = "<disk_size>"
  image_id = "<image_ID>"
}

resource "yandex_compute_instance" "vm-1" {
  name                      = "vm-with-gpu"
  allow_stopping_for_update = true
  platform_id               = "standard-v3"
  zone                      = "<availability_zone>"

  resources {
    cores  = <number_of_vCPU_cores>
    memory = <GB_of_RAM>
    gpus   = <number_of_GPUs>
  }

  boot_disk {
    disk_id = yandex_compute_disk.boot-disk.id
  }

  network_interface {
    subnet_id = "${yandex_vpc_subnet.subnet-1.id}"
    nat       = true
  }

  metadata = {
    ssh-keys = "<username>:<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}"
}

    Where:

    • yandex_compute_disk: Boot disk description:

    • yandex_compute_instance: Description of the VM:

      • name: VM name.

      • allow_stopping_for_update: Allow a VM instance to stop to make changes. Set true if you plan to change the network settings, computing resources, disks, or file storage for your VM using Terraform. The default value is false.

      • platform_id: ID of the platform.

      • zone: Availability zone to host the VM.

        You can create VMs on Intel Broadwell with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100, Intel Cascade Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100, AMD EPYC™ with NVIDIA® Ampere® A100 and Intel Ice Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® T4 in the ru-central1-a and ru-central1-b availability zones.

      • platform_id: ID of the platform:

        • gpu-standard-v1 for Intel Broadwell with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100.
        • gpu-standard-v2 for Intel Cascade Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® V100.
        • gpu-standard-v3 for AMD EPYC™ with NVIDIA® Ampere® A100.
        • standard-v3-t4 for Intel Ice Lake with NVIDIA® Tesla® T4.

      • resources: 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 disk ID.

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

        If you want to add multiple network interfaces to the VM, specify the network_interface section as many times as you need. You can add up to eight network interfaces to a single VM.

      • metadata: In the metadata, provide the public key for VM access via SSH. For more information, see VM metadata.

    • yandex_vpc_network: Description of the cloud network.

    • yandex_vpc_subnet: Description of the subnet your VM will connect to.

    Note

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

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

  2. Create resources:

    1. In the terminal, change to the folder where you edited the configuration file.

    2. Make sure the configuration file is correct using the command:

      terraform validate

      If the configuration is correct, the following message is returned:

      Success! The configuration is valid.

    3. Run the command:

      terraform plan

      The terminal will display a list of resources with parameters. No changes are made at this step. If the configuration contains errors, Terraform will point them out.

    4. Apply the configuration changes:

      terraform apply

    5. Confirm the changes: type yes in the terminal and press Enter.

    All the resources you need will then be created in the specified folder. You can check the new resources and their configuration using the management console.

To create a VM, use the create REST API method for the Instance resource or the InstanceService/Create gRPC API call.

When a VM is created, it is assigned an IP address and hostname (FQDN). This data can be used for SSH access.

You can make a public IP address static. For more information, see Making a VM's public IP address static.

See also

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Creating a VM with a custom configuration script
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Making a VM preemptible