Install a host system

Install and configure a RHEL for NVIDIA host system. To use the corresponding repositories, you must skip registering your system during the installation process.

Before you begin

  • A valid user account on the Red Hat Customer Portal.
  • An active subscription for your RHEL system.
  • An NVIDIA Grace-Hopper or Grace-Blackwell platform.
  • The system firmware (SBIOS) must advertise the ACPI IORT CANWBS memory access flag, which is available from NVIDIA SBIOS v02.03.xx and later.

Procedure

  1. Download the Red Hat Enterprise Linux for NVIDIA ISO image from the Download Red Hat Enterprise Linux for ARM 64 section of the Customer Portal.
  2. Start the system installation from the media.
    Important

    Skip subscription-related steps within the Connect to Red Hat section in the Installation summary window of the interactive graphical installation.
  3. After the installation, register your RHEL for NVIDIA system: 
    # subscription-manager register
  4. Enable the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 for ARM 64 - Nvidia (RPMs) repository: 
    # subscription-manager repos --enable=rhel-10-for-aarch64-nvidia-rpms
  5. Install the RHEL for NVIDIA specific packages from the repository: 
    # dnf install virt-install libvirt-daemon-kvm libvirt-daemon-config-network

Results

  • Verify that the host uses the 64KiB page size required by RHEL for NVIDIA: 
    $ getconf PAGESIZE

    If the output returns 65536, the page size is correct.

  • Verify that the host system is configured correctly for virtualization: 
    # virt-host-validate

    If all checks display PASS, the host is configured correctly. Investigate any WARN or FAIL results before proceeding.

What to do next