This “guide” aims to explore and give a practical example of leveraging SaltStack to achieve the same goal as NVIDIA GPU passthrough into Linux HVMs for CUDA applications. Salt is a management engine that simplifies configuration, and QubesOS has its own flavour. Want to see some?
This guide assumes that you’re done fiddling with your IOMMU groups and modified grub parameters to allow passthrough.
In addition to that, if you haven’t set up salt environment yet, complete step 1.1 as described in this guide to get ready.
The basics
Before we even start doing anything, let’s discuss the basics. You probably already know that salt configurations are stored in /srv/user_salt/. Here’s how it may look:
.
├── nvidia-driver
│ ├── disable-nouveau.sls
│ ├── init.sls
│ └── map.jinja
├── test.sls
└── top.sls
Let’s start with the obvious. top.sls is a top file. It describes high state, which is really just a combination of convetional salt formulas. Stray piece of salt configuration can be referred to as formula, although I’ve seen this word being used in various contexts. test.sls is a state file. It contains a configuration written in yaml. nvidia-driver is also a state, although it is a directory. This is an alternative way to store state for situations when you want to have multiple state (or not only state) files. When a state directory is referenced, salt evaluates init.sls state file inside. State files may or may not be included from init.sls or other state files.
Yaml configuration consists of states. In this context, state refers to a module - piece of code that most often does a pretty specific thing. In a configuration, states behave like commands or functions and methods of a programming language. One valuable thing to note here is that not all modules are state modules. There are a lot of them, and they can do various things, but here we only need the state kind.
In addition to state files, you notice map.jinja. Jinja is a templating engine. What it means is that it helps you to generalize your state files by adding variables, conditions and other cool features. You can easily recognize jinja by fancy brackets: {{ }}, {% %}, {# #}. This file in particular stores variable definitions and is used for configuration of the whole state directory thingy (nvidia-driver).
Writing salt configuration
1. Create a standalone
First, let’s write a state to describe how vm shall be created:
nvidia-driver--create-qube:
qvm.vm:
- name: {{ prefs.standalone_name }}
- present:
- template: {{ prefs.template_name }}
- label: {{ prefs.standalone_label }}
- mem: {{ prefs.standalone_memory }}
- vcpus: {{ prefs.standalone_cpus }}
- maxmem: 0
- class: StandaloneVM
- prefs:
- label: {{ prefs.standalone_label }}
- mem: {{ prefs.standalone_memory }}
- vcpus: {{ prefs.standalone_cpus }}
- pcidevs: {{ devices }}
- virt_mode: hvm
- kernel:
- maxmem: 0
- class: StandaloneVM
- features:
- set:
- menu-items: qubes-run-terminal.desktop
Here, I use qubes-specific qvm.vm state module (which in reality is a wrapper around other modules, like prefs, features, etc.). Pretty much all values and keys here are the same as you can set and get using qvm-prefs and qvm-features. For nvidia drivers to work, kernel must be provided by the qube - that’s why the field is empty. Similarly, to pass GPU we need to set virtualization mode to hvm and maxmem to 0 (it disables memory balancing).
nvidia-driver--create-qube is just a label. As long as you don’t cross the syntax writing it, it should be fine. Aside from referencing, plenty of modules can use it to simplify the syntax, and some need it to decide what to do, but you can look it up later if you want.
Now, to the jinja statements. Here, they provide values for keys like label, template, name, etc. Some of them are done this way (as opposed to writing a value by hand) because the value is repeated in the state file multiple times, others are to simplify the process of configuration. In order to figure out why some of them use dot notation whereas other don’t, we must check their declaration. In this state file they’re imported using the following line:
{% from 'nvidia-driver/map.jinja' import prefs,devices,paths %}
This is pretty much just python in brackets. Notice that you need to specify state directory when importing, and use actual path instead of dot notation.
Upon inspection of map.jinja, what we see is:
{% set prefs = {
'standalone_name': 'fedora-40-nvidia',
'standalone_label': 'yellow',
'standalone_memory': 4000,
'standalone_cpus': 4,
'template_name': 'fedora-40-xfce',
} %}
{# Don't forget to check devices before running! #}
{% set devices = [
'01:00.0',
'01:00.1',
] %}
{% set paths = {
'nvidia_conf': '/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/nvidia.conf',
'grub_conf': '/etc/default/grub',
'grub_out': '/boot/grub2/grub.cfg',
} %}
Here, I declare dictionary prefs, list devices, and another dictionary paths. Since we need to pass all devices from the list to new qube, in the state file I reference the whole list using jinja expression ({{ devices }}). Dictionaries are used to fill parameters, and dot notation is used to reference specific values in them.
Double brackets tell the parser to “print” the value into state file before the show starts, whereas statements ({% %}) do logic. {# #} is a comment.
1.5 Interlude: what’s next?
Now, when we have a qube at the ready (you can check it by applying it), how to install drivers? I want to discuss what’s going on next, because at the moment of writing (November 2024) this guide is for fedora 40 in combination with somewhat modern hardware, and it has some distro-specific issues.
Tip: To apply state, put your state into the folder in your salt environment together with jinja file and run
sudo qubesctl --show-output state.sls <name_of_your_state> saltenv=user
(substitute<name_of_your_state>)Salt will apply the state to all targets. When not specified, dom0 is the only target. This is what we want here, because dom0 handles creation of qubes, but what to do if situation is different? Add
--skip-dom0if you want to skip dom0 and add--targets=<targets>to add something else.
The plan:
- Prepare qube ← we’re here
- Enable rpmfusion repository
- Grow
/tmp/, because default 1G is too small to fit everything that driver building process spews out. It will fail otherwise. - Delete
grubby-dummy, becase it confilcts withsdubby, and nvidia drivers depend on it. - Install
akmod-nvidiaandxorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda - Wait for building process to finish
- Delete X config, because we don’t need it where we going
- optional : Disable nouveau, because nvidia install script may fail to convince the system that it should use nvidia driver.
2-0.5. How to choose target inside the state file
Unless you are willing to write (and call for) multiple states to perform single operation, you might be wandering how to make salt apply only first state (qube creation) to dom0, and all others - to the nvidia qube. The answer is to use jinja:
{% if grains['id'] == 'dom0' %}
<!-- Dom0 stuff goes here -->
{% elif grains['id'] == prefs.standalone_name %}
<!-- prefs.standalone_name stuff goes here -->
{% endif %}
That way, state will be applied to all targets (dom0, prefs.standalone_name), but jinja will edit the state file appropriately for each of them.
2. Enable rpmfusion
Pretty self-explanatory. {free,nonfree} is used to enable multiple repositories at once. This is not salt or jinja-specific.
nvidia-driver--enable-repo:
cmd.run:
- name: dnf config-manager --enable rpmfusion-{free,nonfree}{,-updates}
3. Extend /tmp/
This lasts until reboot. 4G is probably overkill.
nvidia-driver--extend-tmp:
cmd.run:
- name: mount -o remount,size=4G /tmp/
4. Delete grubby-dummy
nvidia-driver--remove-grubby:
pkg.purged:
- pkgs:
- grubby-dummy
5. Install drivers
Here, I use - require: parameter to wait for other states to apply before installing the drivers. Note that it needs both state (e.g. cmd) and label to function.
nvidia-driver--install:
pkg.installed:
- pkgs:
- akmod-nvidia
- xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda
- nvtop
- require:
- cmd: nvidia-driver--enable-repo
- cmd: nvidia-driver--extend-tmp
- pkg: nvidia-driver--remove-grubby
6. Wait for the drivers to build
Well, this one is kind of wonky. loop.until_no_eval runs the state specified by - name: until it returns stuff from - expected. Here it is set to try once in 20 seconds for 600 seconds. I think it totals 10 minutes. - args: describe what to pass to the state in the - name:
Wonkyness comes from the fact that I run modinfo -F name nvidia, which translates into “What is the name of the module with the name ‘nvidia’?”. It just returns an error until module is present (i.e. done building), and then returns ‘nvidia’.
nvidia-driver--assert-install:
loop.until_no_eval:
- name: cmd.run
- expected: 'nvidia'
- period: 20
- timeout: 600
- args:
- modinfo -F name nvidia
- require:
- pkg: nvidia-driver--install
7. Delete X config
nvidia-driver--remove-conf:
file.absent:
- name: {{ paths.nvidia_conf }}
- require:
- loop: nvidia-driver--assert-install
8. Disable nouveau
If you download state files, you will find it in a separate file. It is done so for two reasons:
- It may not be required
- I think vm must be restarted before this change is applied, so first run the main state and apply this after restarting the qube.
- Why? No idea.
- Why don’t just add reboot state into the state file before this? Because only dom0 can reboot qubes, dom0 states are always applied first, and there is no way I know of to make it run part of its state, wait until a condition is met, and continue, without multiple calls to qubesctl, unless…
To run state located inside state folder, use dot notation, e.g.:
state.sls nvidia-driver.disable-nouveau
{% from 'nvidia-driver/map.jinja' import prefs,paths %}
{% if grains['id'] == prefs.standalone_name %}
nvidia-driver.disable-nouveau--blacklist-nouveau:
file.append:
- name: {{ paths.grub_conf }}
- text: 'GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="$GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau"'
nvidia-driver.disable-nouveau--grub-mkconfig:
cmd.run:
- name: grub2-mkconfig -o {{ paths.grub_out }}
- require:
- file: nvidia-driver.disable-nouveau--blacklist-nouveau
{% endif %}
Make sure to change the paths if you’re not running fedora 40.
not the ways I know of:
- advanced : Check for conditions in grains and pillars, see this topic
- why? : also I don’t think it can work
Want to check out the complete state? Here you go:
disable-nouveau.yaml (486 Bytes)
init.yaml (2.2 KB)
map.yaml (468 Bytes)
Uploading salt is forbidden, therefore files are renamed into .yaml. For now, I only have state for fedora 40, but modifying it for debian or fedora without conflicting dependencies is trivial.
Contributions, improvements and fixes are welcome! I call it GPL-3 if you need that for some reason.