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Run GPU-accelerated Docker containers on a Runcrate instance. The ubuntu-devbox template includes Docker and the NVIDIA Container Toolkit — pull any image and pass through the GPU with --gpus all.

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1. Deploy a devbox

runcrate instances create --name docker-gpu --gpu RTX4090 --template ubuntu-devbox
runcrate instances status docker-gpu

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2. Verify Docker and GPU access

runcrate ssh docker-gpu -- "docker --version"
runcrate ssh docker-gpu -- "docker run --rm --gpus all nvidia/cuda:12.4.1-base-ubuntu22.04 nvidia-smi"

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3. Run a PyTorch container

runcrate ssh docker-gpu -- "docker run --rm --gpus all \
  -v /workspace:/workspace \
  pytorch/pytorch:2.4.0-cuda12.4-cudnn9-runtime \
  python -c 'import torch; print(f\"CUDA: {torch.cuda.is_available()}, GPU: {torch.cuda.get_device_name(0)}\")'"

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4. Run vLLM in a container

runcrate ssh docker-gpu -- "docker run -d --gpus all \
  --name vllm-server \
  -p 8000:8000 \
  vllm/vllm-openai:latest \
  --model meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct \
  --max-model-len 8192 --host 0.0.0.0"
Test it: 
runcrate instances info docker-gpu

curl http://<INSTANCE_IP>:8000/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello from Docker."}],
    "max_tokens": 128
  }'

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5. Build and run your own image

runcrate cp ./Dockerfile docker-gpu:/workspace/Dockerfile
runcrate cp ./app/ docker-gpu:/workspace/app/

runcrate ssh docker-gpu -- "cd /workspace && docker build -t my-gpu-app ."
runcrate ssh docker-gpu -- "docker run --rm --gpus all my-gpu-app"

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6. Manage containers

runcrate ssh docker-gpu -- "docker ps"
runcrate ssh docker-gpu -- "docker logs vllm-server --tail 50"
runcrate ssh docker-gpu -- "docker stop vllm-server"

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Tips

  • Always use --gpus all to pass GPUs into the container.
  • The ubuntu-devbox template has Docker and nvidia-container-toolkit pre-installed.
  • For multi-GPU instances, all GPUs are available inside the container with --gpus all.
  • Docker images are not persisted across instance restarts. Attach a volume or use a registry.

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Cleanup

runcrate instances delete docker-gpu