NVIDIA GPU passthrough to an Edera zone

This guide shows how to passthrough an NVIDIA GPU to an Edera zone using protect, load the NVIDIA driver, and run a GPU-accelerated workload inside the zone.

Prerequisites

  1. Edera is successfully installed.

  2. You have an NVIDIA GPU on your system.

    Check GPU presence:

    sudo lspci | grep "NVIDIA"

    Expected output:

    b4:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GH100 (rev a1)

  3. You’ll need to define the GPU in your Protect config file. This tells Edera which GPUs are available for passthrough:

    # /var/lib/edera/protect/daemon.toml

[pci.devices]
[pci.devices.gpu0]
locations = [
  "0000:b4:00.0",
]
permissive = true
msi_translate = false
power_management = true
rdm_reserve_policy = "relaxed"

    The key gpu0 is the primary identifier for the GPU in Edera. It links the physical device to the zone and workload later via --device gpu0. You can choose any unique name here (for example gpu1), but it must not be duplicated and must match the name used in your launch commands.

  4. Access to Edera’s NVIDIA zone kernel image:

    ghcr.io/edera-dev/zone-nvidiagpu-kernel:6.15.8-nvidia-575.64.05

    ℹ️
    To gain access to Edera, reach out to the customer engineering team at support@edera.dev to discuss your requirements.

Launch a zone with NVIDIA GPU passthrough 

sudo protect zone launch -n zone-gpu \
  --device gpu0 \
  --kernel-verbose \
  -m 2048 \
  -R static \
  -k ghcr.io/edera-dev/zone-nvidiagpu-kernel:6.15.8-nvidia-575.64.05 \
  --pull-overwrite-cache

Explanation:

  • -n zone-gpu: name of the zone
  • --device gpu0: maps to pci.devices.gpu0 which is the requested device for the zone.
  • -m 2048: allocates 8 GB memory to the zone
  • -R static: resource adjustment policy
  • -k: OCI kernel image for zone to use
  • --pull-overwrite-cache Overwrite image cache on pull

Check that the zone launched successfully:

sudo protect zone list

Expected output:

| name     | uuid                                  | state | ipv4         | ipv6                         |
|----------|---------------------------------------|-------|--------------|------------------------------|
| zone-gpu | 994d83fd-dc41-4b6d-98a9-6a89ad9b45cf  | ready | 10.75.0.2/16 | fdd4:1476:6c7e::2/48         |

Load GPU driver in the zone 

sudo protect zone exec -t zone-gpu -- /bin/busybox modprobe nvidia

Confirm the NVIDIA driver is loaded

Check the zone logs:

sudo protect zone logs zone-gpu

We can also check the device from within the Edera zone by using lsmod:

sudo protect zone exec -t zone-gpu -- /bin/busybox lsmod

Expected output:

Module    Size      Used by  Tainted: G
nvidia    12890112  0

Build and push a test image

Build your own image and push it to your registry (or the public, ephemeral ttl.sh registry) so the workload can run nvidia-smi:

Create the following file named Dockerfile:

FROM nvidia/cuda:12.9.1-devel-ubuntu24.04
RUN apt update && apt install -y nvidia-utils-575-server=575.64.05

Build and push (ttl.sh example):

# build locally -- make sure you run this in the directory with the Dockerfile
docker build -t nvtest:0.0.2 .

# tag for ttl.sh
export ME=`whoami` #you can use something else here, this is for demo purposes only
docker tag nvtest:0.0.2 ttl.sh/${ME}/nvtest:0.0.2

# push
docker push ttl.sh/${ME}/nvtest:0.0.2

Note: ttl.sh images are short‑lived and intended for demos only. Use your own registry for anything persistent.

Run a GPU workload

Launch a workload with the NVIDIA GPU:

sudo protect workload launch -n workload-gpu \
  --privileged \
  --zone zone-gpu \
  ttl.sh/${ME}/nvtest:0.0.2 -- /bin/bash

Check it’s running:

sudo protect workload list

Expected output:

| name          | uuid                                   | zone                                   | state   |
|---------------|----------------------------------------|----------------------------------------|---------|
| workload-gpu  | dcb4944a-9bd9-4f22-b075-a22e3ceb0fd0   | 994d83fd-dc41-4b6d-98a9-6a89ad9b45cf   | running |

Verify GPU access via nvidia-smi:

sudo protect workload exec workload-gpu nvidia-smi

Expected output:

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 575.64.05    Driver Version: 575.64.05    CUDA Version: 12.9    |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                               |                      |               MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA H100 NVL      Off | 00000000:00:00.0 Off |                    0 |
| N/A   42C    P0   120W / 400W |      0MiB / 95830MiB |      9%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| Processes:                                                       GPU Memory |
|  GPU       GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name              Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|  No running processes found                                                 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Success. We’ve configured the GPU and have launched a workload in an isolated zone.

Cleanup 

sudo protect workload destroy workload-gpu
sudo protect zone destroy zone-gpu

Next steps

You’ve successfully launched an NVIDIA GPU-enabled Edera zone. You can now run secure, high-performance AI workloads in hardened zones with native driver support.

See also

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