Prerequisites¶

Before you can use Caliban, you’ll need to install Docker and make sure your Python 3 is up to date. Follow these steps to get set up.

Python 3¶

Caliban requires Python >= 3.6. Check your current version at the terminal:

$ python3 --version
Python 3.6.9 # Or something above 3.6.0

If you need to upgrade:

on MacOS, download the latest Python from python.org.
On Linux, make sure your python3 is up to date by running the following command at your terminal:

sudo apt-get install python3 python3-venv python3-pip

Once that’s all set, run python3 --help again to verify that you’re running python 3.6 or above.

Docker¶

To use Caliban, you’ll need a working Docker installation. If you have a GPU and want to run jobs that use it, you’ll have to install nvidia-docker2, as described below in GPU Support on Linux Machines

On MacOS, install Docker Desktop for Mac. You’ll only be able to run in CPU mode, as MacOS doesn’t support Docker’s nvidia runtime. You will, however, be able to build GPU containers and submit them to Google Cloud.
On Linux, install Docker with these instructions.

Add your username to the docker group so that you can run Docker without using sudo:

sudo usermod -a -G docker ${USER}

GPU Support on Linux Machines¶

On Linux, Caliban can run jobs locally that take advantage of a GPU you may have installed.

To use this feature, install the nvidia-docker2 runtime by following the instructions at the nvidia-docker2 page.

Note

It’s important that you install nvidia-docker2, not nvidia-docker! The nvidia-docker2 instructions discuss how to upgrade if you accidentally install nvidia-docker.

Note

The most recent versions of docker don’t need the nvidia-docker2 dependency. In a future version of Caliban we’ll remove this dependency and upgrade the documentation.