Symb1OS/docker-pytorch

PyTorch Docker image

Ubuntu [14.04|16.04] + PyTorch + CUDA [7.5|8.0|9.1|none]

Requirements

In order to use this image you must have Docker Engine installed. Instructions for setting up Docker Engine are available on the Docker website.

Building

This image can be built on top of multiple different base images derived from Ubuntu. Which base you choose depends on whether you have an NVIDIA graphics card which supports CUDA and you want to use GPU acceleration or not.

If you are running Ubuntu, you can install proprietary NVIDIA drivers from the PPA and CUDA from the NVIDIA website. These are only required if you want to use GPU acceleration.

If you are running Windows or OSX then you will find it difficult/impossible to use GPU acceleration due to the fact that containers run in a virtual machine. Use the image without CUDA on those platforms.

With CUDA

Firstly ensure that you have a supported NVIDIA graphics card with the appropriate drivers and CUDA libraries installed.

Build the image using the following command:

# If you have CUDA 9.1:
docker build -t pytorch ./cuda-9.1
# If you have CUDA 8.0:
docker build -t pytorch ./cuda-8.0
# If you have CUDA 7.5:
docker build -t pytorch ./cuda-7.5

You will also need to install nvidia-docker, which we will use to start the container with GPU access. This can be found at NVIDIA/nvidia-docker.

Without CUDA

Build the image using the following command:

docker build -t torch ./no-cuda

Usage

Running PyTorch scripts

It is also possible to run PyTorch programs inside a container using the python3 command. For example, if you are within a directory containing some PyTorch project with entrypoint main.py, you could run it with the following command:

docker run --rm -it --init \
  --runtime=nvidia \
  --ipc=host \
  --user="$(id -u):$(id -g)" \
  --volume=$PWD:/app \
  -e NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=0 \
  pytorch python3 main.py

Here's a description of the Docker command-line options shown above:

--runtime=nvidia: Required if using CUDA, optional otherwise. Passes the graphics card from the host to the container.
--ipc-host: Required if using multiprocessing, as explained at https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch#docker-image.
--user="$(id -u):$(id -g)": Sets the user inside the container to match your user and group ID. Optional, but is useful for writing files with correct ownership.
--volume=$PWD:/app: Mounts the current working directory into the container. The default working directory inside the container is /app. Optional.
-e NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=0: Sets an environment variable to restrict which graphics cards are seen by programs running inside the container. Set to all to enable all cards. Optional, defaults to all.

You may wish to consider using Docker Compose to make running containers with many options easier. At the time of writing, only version 2.3 of Docker Compose configuration files supports the runtime option.

Running graphical applications

If you are running on a Linux host, you can get code running inside the Docker container to display graphics using the host X server (this allows you to use OpenCV's imshow, for example). Here we describe a quick-and-dirty (but INSECURE) way of doing this. For a more comprehensive guide on GUIs and Docker check out http://wiki.ros.org/docker/Tutorials/GUI.

On the host run:

sudo xhost +local:root

You can revoke these access permissions later with sudo xhost -local:root. Now when you run a container make sure you add the options -e "DISPLAY" and --volume="/tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:rw". This will provide the container with your X11 socket for communication and your display ID. Here's an example:

docker run --rm -it --init \
  --runtime=nvidia \
  -e "DISPLAY" --volume="/tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:rw" \
  pytorch python3 -c "import tkinter; tkinter.Tk().mainloop()"

Symb1OS / docker-pytorch