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Quickstart
Introduction
This section guides you through container-based environment setup and large model inference, using the Qwen3-0.6B offline single-GPU inference script as an example.
- For details on using different models, see the corresponding model tutorial in the "Model Tutorials" directory, for example, Qwen3-30B-A3B.
- For details on using different functions, see the corresponding function tutorial in the "Function Tutorials" directory, for example, Prefill-Decode Disaggregation (DeepSeek).
Prerequisites
Supported Devices
- Atlas A2 training series (Atlas 800T A2, Atlas 900 A2 PoD, Atlas 200T A2 Box16, Atlas 300T A2)
- Atlas 800I A2 inference series (Atlas 800I A2)
- Atlas A3 training series (Atlas 800T A3, Atlas 900 A3 SuperPoD, Atlas 9000 A3 SuperPoD)
- Atlas 800I A3 inference series (Atlas 800I A3)
- Atlas 950DT inference series (Atlas 950DT)
- Atlas 300I DUO
- Atlas 200I Pro
Requirements
:::::{tab-set}
::::{tab-item} Atlas A2/A3/950DT inference products
- OS: Linux
- Python: >= 3.10, < 3.13
- Hardware with Ascend NPUs. It's usually the Atlas 800 A2 series.
- Software:
Software Supported version Note Ascend HDK Refer to the CANN 9.1.0 Release Notes Required for CANN CANN == 9.1.0 Required for vllm-ascend and TorchNPU TorchNPU == 2.10.0.post4 Required for vllm-ascend, No need to install manually, it will be auto installed in below steps torch == 2.10.0 Required for TorchNPU and vllm, No need to install manually, it will be auto installed in below steps NNAL == 9.1.0 Required for libatb.so, enables advanced tensor operations
Atlas 300I DUO uses CANN 9.1.0 and `float16`. Use the `-310p` image suffix for Ubuntu or `-310p-openeuler` for openEuler. Atlas 300I DUO does not support `triton` or `triton-ascend`.
Atlas 300I DUO and Atlas 200I Pro do not support `enable_npugraph_ex`. Set --additional-config '{"ascend_compilation_config": {"enable_npugraph_ex":false}}'.
Atlas 200I Pro requires additional device nodes and driver mounts. See [Set up using Docker](installation.md#set-up-using-docker) for the complete container commands.
::::
::::{tab-item} Atlas 300I DUO
| Software | Supported version | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Ascend HDK | Refer to the CANN 9.1.0 Release Notes | Required for CANN |
| CANN | == 9.1.0 | Required for vllm-ascend and TorchNPU |
| TorchNPU | == 2.10.0.post4 | Required for vllm-ascend, No need to install manually, it will be auto installed in below steps |
| torch | == 2.10.0 | Required for TorchNPU and vllm, No need to install manually, it will be auto installed in below steps |
| NNAL | == 9.1.0 | Required for libatb.so, enables advanced tensor operations |
| triton / triton-ascend | Not supported | Uninstalled in Dockerfile.310p |
:::: :::::
Setup environment using container
Before using containers, make sure Docker is installed on your system. If Docker is not installed, please refer to the Docker installation guide for installation instructions.
:::::{tab-set} ::::{tab-item} Ubuntu
:substitutions:
# Update DEVICE according to your device (/dev/davinci[0-7])
export DEVICE=/dev/davinci0
# Update the vllm-ascend image
# Atlas A2:
# export IMAGE=quay.io/ascend/vllm-ascend:|vllm_ascend_version|
# Atlas A3:
# export IMAGE=quay.io/ascend/vllm-ascend:|vllm_ascend_version|-a3
# Atlas 950DT:
# export IMAGE=quay.io/ascend/vllm-ascend:|vllm_ascend_version|-950dt
export IMAGE=quay.io/ascend/vllm-ascend:|vllm_ascend_version|
docker run --rm \
--name vllm-ascend \
--shm-size=1g \
--device $DEVICE \
--device /dev/davinci_manager \
--device /dev/devmm_svm \
--device /dev/hisi_hdc \
-v /usr/local/dcmi:/usr/local/dcmi \
-v /usr/local/bin/npu-smi:/usr/local/bin/npu-smi \
-v /usr/local/Ascend/driver/lib64/:/usr/local/Ascend/driver/lib64/ \
-v /usr/local/Ascend/driver/version.info:/usr/local/Ascend/driver/version.info \
-v /etc/ascend_install.info:/etc/ascend_install.info \
-v /root/.cache:/root/.cache \
-p 8000:8000 \
-it $IMAGE bash
# Install curl
apt-get update -y && apt-get install -y curl
::::
::::{tab-item} Ubuntu (Atlas 300I DUO)
The following command applies to Atlas 300I DUO. For Atlas 200I Pro, use the additional device nodes and driver mounts documented in Installation.
:substitutions:
# Update DEVICE according to your device (/dev/davinci[0-7])
export DEVICE=/dev/davinci0
# Update the vllm-ascend image
export IMAGE=quay.io/ascend/vllm-ascend:|vllm_ascend_version|-310p
docker run --rm \
--name vllm-ascend \
--shm-size=1g \
--device $DEVICE \
--device /dev/davinci_manager \
--device /dev/devmm_svm \
--device /dev/hisi_hdc \
-v /usr/local/dcmi:/usr/local/dcmi \
-v /usr/local/bin/npu-smi:/usr/local/bin/npu-smi \
-v /usr/local/Ascend/driver/lib64/:/usr/local/Ascend/driver/lib64/ \
-v /usr/local/Ascend/driver/version.info:/usr/local/Ascend/driver/version.info \
-v /etc/ascend_install.info:/etc/ascend_install.info \
-v /root/.cache:/root/.cache \
-p 8000:8000 \
-it $IMAGE bash
# Install curl
apt-get update -y && apt-get install -y curl
::::
::::{tab-item} openEuler
:substitutions:
# Update DEVICE according to your device (/dev/davinci[0-7])
export DEVICE=/dev/davinci0
# Update the vllm-ascend image
# Atlas A2:
# export IMAGE=quay.io/ascend/vllm-ascend:|vllm_ascend_version|-openeuler
# Atlas A3:
# export IMAGE=quay.io/ascend/vllm-ascend:|vllm_ascend_version|-a3-openeuler
# Atlas 950DT:
# export IMAGE=quay.io/ascend/vllm-ascend:|vllm_ascend_version|-950dt-openeuler
export IMAGE=quay.io/ascend/vllm-ascend:|vllm_ascend_version|-openeuler
docker run --rm \
--name vllm-ascend \
--shm-size=1g \
--device $DEVICE \
--device /dev/davinci_manager \
--device /dev/devmm_svm \
--device /dev/hisi_hdc \
-v /usr/local/dcmi:/usr/local/dcmi \
-v /usr/local/bin/npu-smi:/usr/local/bin/npu-smi \
-v /usr/local/Ascend/driver/lib64/:/usr/local/Ascend/driver/lib64/ \
-v /usr/local/Ascend/driver/version.info:/usr/local/Ascend/driver/version.info \
-v /etc/ascend_install.info:/etc/ascend_install.info \
-v /root/.cache:/root/.cache \
-p 8000:8000 \
-it $IMAGE bash
# Install curl
yum update -y && yum install -y curl
::::
::::{tab-item} openEuler (Atlas 300I DUO)
The following command applies to Atlas 300I DUO. For Atlas 200I Pro, use the additional device nodes and driver mounts documented in Installation.
:substitutions:
# Update DEVICE according to your device (/dev/davinci[0-7])
export DEVICE=/dev/davinci0
# Update the vllm-ascend image
export IMAGE=quay.io/ascend/vllm-ascend:|vllm_ascend_version|-310p-openeuler
docker run --rm \
--name vllm-ascend \
--shm-size=1g \
--device $DEVICE \
--device /dev/davinci_manager \
--device /dev/devmm_svm \
--device /dev/hisi_hdc \
-v /usr/local/dcmi:/usr/local/dcmi \
-v /usr/local/bin/npu-smi:/usr/local/bin/npu-smi \
-v /usr/local/Ascend/driver/lib64/:/usr/local/Ascend/driver/lib64/ \
-v /usr/local/Ascend/driver/version.info:/usr/local/Ascend/driver/version.info \
-v /etc/ascend_install.info:/etc/ascend_install.info \
-v /root/.cache:/root/.cache \
-p 8000:8000 \
-it $IMAGE bash
# Install curl
yum update -y && yum install -y curl
:::: :::::
The default workdir is /workspace, vLLM and vLLM Ascend code are placed in /vllm-workspace and installed in development mode (pip install -e) to help developers make changes effective immediately without requiring a new installation.
Usage
You can use ModelScope mirror to speed up download:
export VLLM_USE_MODELSCOPE=True
There are two ways to start vLLM on Ascend NPU:
:::::{tab-set} ::::{tab-item} Offline Batched Inference
With vLLM installed, you can start generating texts for list of input prompts (i.e. offline batch inference).
Create and run a simple inference test. The example.py can be like:
from vllm import LLM, SamplingParams
prompts = [
"Hello, my name is",
"The future of AI is",
]
sampling_params = SamplingParams(temperature=0.8, top_p=0.95)
# The first run will take about 3-5 mins (10 MB/s) to download models
llm = LLM(model="Qwen/Qwen3-0.6B")
outputs = llm.generate(prompts, sampling_params)
for output in outputs:
prompt = output.prompt
generated_text = output.outputs[0].text
print(f"Prompt: {prompt!r}, Generated text: {generated_text!r}")
Then run:
python example.py
If you encounter a connection error with Hugging Face (e.g., We couldn't connect to 'https://huggingface.co' to load the files, and couldn't find them in the cached files.), run the following commands to use ModelScope as an alternative:
export VLLM_USE_MODELSCOPE=True
pip install modelscope
python example.py
If you encounter custom-op security verification errors while running inference on Atlas 950DT, refer to [Pooling enables UB and UBoE for 950DT and 950PR](https://gitcode.com/Ascend/memcache/wiki/%E6%B1%A0%E5%8C%96%E4%BD%BF%E8%83%BD950DT%E5%92%8C950PR%E7%9A%84UB%E5%92%8CUBoE.md) and run the following commands:
> Each NPU will prompt for confirmation when running the first command. You must manually enter `Y` for all of them.
```bash
for i in {0..7}; do npu-smi set -t custom-op-secverify-enable -i $i -d 1; done;
for i in {0..7}; do npu-smi set -t custom-op-secverify-mode -i $i -d 0; done;
This section shows ascend platform is successfully detected in vllm:
INFO 05-27 11:40:38 [__init__.py:44] Available plugins for group vllm.platform_plugins:
INFO 05-27 11:40:38 [__init__.py:46] - ascend -> vllm_ascend:register
INFO 05-27 11:40:38 [__init__.py:49] All plugins in this group will be loaded. Set `VLLM_PLUGINS` to control which plugins to load.
INFO 05-27 11:40:38 [__init__.py:238] Platform plugin ascend is activated
This section shows the final output:
Prompt: 'Hello, my name is', Generated text: ' Lucy and I am an 8 year old who loves to draw and write stories'
Prompt: 'The president of the United States is', Generated text: " a key leader in the federal government, and the president's role in the executive"
Prompt: 'The capital of France is', Generated text: ' a city. What is the capital of France? The capital of France is Paris'
Prompt: 'The future of AI is', Generated text: ' a topic that is being discussed in various contexts. In the business world, AI'
This section shows process exits after offline inference, and does not affect actual inference:
(EngineCore pid=970) INFO 05-12 11:36:00 [core.py:1201] Shutdown initiated (timeout=0)
(EngineCore pid=970) INFO 05-12 11:36:00 [core.py:1224] Shutdown complete
ERROR 05-12 11:36:01 [core_client.py:704] Engine core proc EngineCore died unexpectedly, shutting down client.
sys:1: DeprecationWarning: builtin type swigvarlink has no __module__ attribute
::::
::::{tab-item} OpenAI Completions API
vLLM can also be deployed as a server that implements the OpenAI API protocol. Run the following command to start the vLLM server with the Qwen/Qwen3-0.6B model:
# Deploy vLLM server (The first run will take about 3-5 mins (10 MB/s) to download models)
vllm serve Qwen/Qwen3-0.6B &
If you see a log as below:
INFO: Started server process [3594]
INFO: Waiting for application startup.
INFO: Application startup complete.
INFO: Uvicorn running on http://0.0.0.0:8000 (Press CTRL+C to quit)
Congratulations, you have successfully started the vLLM server!
You can query the list of models:
curl http://localhost:8000/v1/models | python3 -m json.tool
You can also query the model with input prompts:
curl http://localhost:8000/v1/completions \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "Qwen/Qwen3-0.6B",
"prompt": "Beijing is a",
"max_completion_tokens": 5,
"temperature": 0
}' | python3 -m json.tool
vLLM is serving as a background process, you can use kill -2 $VLLM_PID to stop the background process gracefully, which is similar to Ctrl-C for stopping the foreground vLLM process:
VLLM_PID=$(pgrep -f "vllm serve")
kill -2 "$VLLM_PID"
The output is as below:
INFO: Shutting down FastAPI HTTP server.
INFO: Shutting down
INFO: Waiting for application shutdown.
INFO: Application shutdown complete.
Finally, you can exit the container by using ctrl-D.
::::
:::::