Ansible Role: nvidia_container_toolkit

Installs and configures the NVIDIA Container Toolkit for Docker on RPM-based systems.

What it does

1. Adds the official NVIDIA Container Toolkit RPM repository.
2. Installs the nvidia-container-toolkit package.
3. Configures /etc/docker/daemon.json with the NVIDIA runtime.
4. Reloads Docker when the daemon configuration changes (running containers keep running).

Requirements

• RPM-based OS (RHEL, Rocky, AlmaLinux, CentOS, Fedora)
• Docker already installed
• NVIDIA GPU drivers already installed on the host

Role Variables

Variable	Default	Description
nvidia_container_toolkit_repo_url	https://nvidia.github.io/libnvidia-container/stable/rpm/nvidia-container-toolkit.repo	URL to the NVIDIA Container Toolkit RPM repository file.
nvidia_docker_default_runtime	nvidia	The default container runtime for Docker.
nvidia_docker_live_restore	false	Set "live-restore": true, so containers keep running while dockerd restarts (e.g. a docker-ce patch upgrade).

Dependencies

• nvidia_driver_cuda
• elan.docker_install

Example Playbook

Basic usage

- hosts: gpu_nodes
  roles:
    - nvidia_driver_cuda
    - elan.docker_install
    - nvidia_container_toolkit

With custom variables

- hosts: gpu_nodes
  roles:
    - role: nvidia_container_toolkit
      vars:
        nvidia_docker_default_runtime: "runc"

Handlers

• Reload Docker: Triggered when /etc/docker/daemon.json is modified. Every key the template sets (default-runtime, runtimes, live-restore) is one dockerd applies on reload, so no container is restarted, including when live-restore is switched on.

Important Notes

• This role overwrites /etc/docker/daemon.json. If you have existing Docker daemon configuration, merge it into the templates/daemon.json.j2 template.
• This role does not install GPU drivers. Make sure drivers are present before running it.
• This role only supports RPM-based distributions. For Debian/Ubuntu, the repository setup task needs to be adapted.