Installation Guide

Ubuntu 22.04 is the operating system our hypervisor runs on. Here's how to properly configure the BIOS and install Ubuntu

1. Create your server

Double check:

• You are not mixing-and-matching RAM

• You have an integrated graphics card, your motherboard includes a graphics device, OR you have an extra discrete GPU

2. Update BIOS Settings

First, hop into the machine's BIOS. For most servers, this will mean pressing down the delete key.

Hop into the machine's BIOS

Enable Virtualization

This allows the CPU to be divided up into customer virtual machines.

In Asrock Rack and Supermicro motherboards, you'll find SVM (virtualization support for AMD CPUs) in Advanced --> CPU Configuration

Enable IOMMU / Above 4G Decoding and set VGA priority to onboard

This enables us to pass through GPUs into virtual machines.

Also, enable SR-IOV support. While this is not required at the moment, our software will need this functionality in the future.

In Asrock Rack motherboards, you'll find IOMMU in Advanced --> AMD CBS --> NBIO Common Options

3. Install Ubuntu 22.04

Hop here and install the Ubuntu 22.04 Server Edition:

Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)releases.ubuntu.com

For this tutorial, we'll be using English

Generally, you can continue without updating. If the installation fails, try it with the updated installer

Please select "Ubuntu Server," not the minimized option. We require the additional packages that come with it

If you have multiple network devices connected to the network, you may want to create a bond to ensure better reliability. If your router supports 802.3ad, we recommend that. If not, you can just use one network device.

Regardless of if you are using a bond or the network card directly, please make sure you set the IPv4 method through manual mode, not DHCP. This will ensure that the IP will never change, which we require.

When setting your mirror, please set a geographically-close mirror to ensure responsiveness and speed

Once you've selected "Use an entire disk, check the "Set up this disk as an LVM group box"

On this step, MAKE SURE YOU CHECK "Set up this disk as an LVM group."

Then, confirm!

• Your name: Set this to be anything

• Your server's name: set this to be something descriptive. It does not need to be anything special; it's solely the name of the server that connects to your network, so it can largely be ignored.

• Pick a username: tensordock. Please do NOT do anything else! Not tensordock01, not tensordock_user. Just tensordock.

• Choose a password: Make this a long and complex password! If it is guessable, then hackers could access your machine and do damage to your internal network! You can also log on later and then change the password then.

Then, install OpenSSH server, as shown above. DO NOT install additional 3rd-party drivers (do not install NVIDIA drivers)

4. Fill in the form and await contact from your TensorDock account manager

Host Form

We'll promptly get your machine listed after we verify a few additional things and run some tests!