Install the VIB for the NVIDIA GRID vGPU Graphics Card on the ESXi Host

To support vGPU capabilities on a Linux desktop, you must download and install the VIB for your NVIDIA GRID graphics card on the ESXi host.

NVIDIA provides a vGPU software package that includes a vGPU Manager, which you install on the ESXi host in this procedure, and a Linux Display Driver, which you can install on the Linux virtual machine in a later procedure.

Prerequisites

• Verify that vSphere 7 U3 or a later release is installed in your environment.

  Note: To support vGPU capabilities on Linux application pools, you must use vSphere 7 U3 or later.

• Verify that the required vGPU graphics card is installed on the ESXi host.

Note: For information about the NVIDIA graphics cards and Linux distributions that support vGPU capabilities, see https://docs.nvidia.com/grid/latest/product-support-matrix/index.html.

Procedure

1. Download the VIB for your NVIDIA GRID vGPU graphics card from the NVIDIA website.

   Select the appropriate VIB version from the drop-down menus.

   Option	Description
   Product Type	GRID
   Product Series	Select NVIDIA GRID vGPU.
   Product	Select the version (such as GRID K2) that is installed on the ESXi host.
   Operating System	Select the vSphere ESXi version.

2. Uncompress the vGPU software package .zip file.

3. Upload the vGPU Manager folder to the ESXi host.

   Note: You can install the Linux Display Driver on the Linux virtual machine in a later procedure.

4. Power off or suspend all virtual machines on the ESXi host.

5. Connect to the ESXi host using SSH.

6. Stop the xorg service.

   # /etc/init.d/xorg stop
   

7. Install the NVIDIA VIB.

   For example:

   # esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable true
   # esxcli software vib install -v /path-to-vib/NVIDIA-VIB-name.vib
   # esxcli system maintenanceMode set --enable false
   

8. Reboot or update the ESXi host.

For an installed ESXi host, reboot the host.

For a stateless ESXi host, take the following steps to update the stateless ESXi host. (You can also use these steps on an installed ESXi host.)

a. Get the process ID (PID) for the ESXi machine's process vmkdevmgr.pid. Look for that vmkdevmgr.pid in the ESXi machine's /var/run area.

b. Use that PID in the kill -HUP command to update the ESXi vmkdevmgr process by sending a hang-up signal to the PID. For <insert pid>, use the PID you looked up in the previous step.

# kill -HUP <insert pid>

c. Wait for the update to complete and then use the local to bind the internal devices after the update. This binding ensures the VIB-related changes take effect.

In the following command, replace <esxcli-directory> with the ESXi host's directory path where the plugins for the ESXI command line interface are located.

localcli --plugin-dir <esxcli-directory>/int deviceInternal bind

d. Note: This step is a new requirement with the NVIDIA 352.* host driver. Run the following command to initiate the NVIDIA vGPU service. /etc/init.d/nvidia-vgpu start

e. Restart the xorg service, which is responsible for managing GPU assignments, to ensure the new configurations are applied: /etc/init.d/xorg start

9. After the ESXi host restarts, verify that the xorg service is running.