gpumod

GPU Service Manager for ML workloads on Linux/NVIDIA systems.

gpumod manages vLLM, llama.cpp, FastAPI, and Docker-based inference services on NVIDIA GPUs. It tracks VRAM allocation, supports mode-based service switching, provides VRAM simulation before deployment, and exposes an MCP server for AI assistant integration.

Features

• Service Management -- Register, start, stop, and monitor GPU services with support for vLLM, llama.cpp, FastAPI, and Docker drivers
• Mode Switching -- Define named modes (e.g., "chat", "coding") that bundle services together and switch between them
• VRAM Simulation -- Simulate VRAM for any configuration before deployment, with alternative suggestions when capacity is exceeded
• Model Registry -- Track ML models with metadata from HuggingFace Hub or GGUF files, with automatic VRAM estimation
• MCP Server -- Expose GPU management as an MCP server for Claude Code, Cursor, Claude Desktop, and other MCP-compatible AI assistants
• Template Engine -- Generate and install systemd unit files from Jinja2 templates, customized per driver type
• AI Planning -- LLM-assisted VRAM allocation suggestions (advisory only)
• Interactive TUI -- Terminal dashboard with live GPU status
• Rich CLI -- Beautiful output with tables, VRAM bar charts, and JSON mode
• Host-Stability Doctor -- Preflight checks (gpumod doctor sysctl, gpumod doctor oom-protection, gpumod doctor venv) that catch fragmentation-class freezes and operator-disconnect failures BEFORE they happen. Installable systemd drop-ins in scripts/oom-protection/ protect critical services (code-server, SSH) from being killed under memory pressure.

Installation

Requires uv, Python >= 3.12, Linux with NVIDIA GPU, and nvidia-smi in PATH.

git clone https://github.com/jaigouk/gpumod.git
cd gpumod
uv sync

# Install globally so `gpumod` is always on your PATH
uv tool install -e .

Quick Start

# Initialize database and load presets
gpumod init

# Check GPU status
gpumod status

# List services
gpumod service list

Deploying a Service

gpumod auto-generates systemd unit files from presets — no manual unit files needed.

# Enable user-level systemd lingering (one-time setup)
sudo loginctl enable-linger $USER

# Preview the generated unit file
gpumod template generate vllm-chat

# Install it to ~/.config/systemd/user/
gpumod template install vllm-chat --yes

# Start the service (uses systemctl --user, no sudo needed)
gpumod service start vllm-chat

See the Getting Started guide for full setup instructions.

Mode Switching

Modes bundle services together and fit them within your VRAM budget.

# Simulate VRAM usage before switching
gpumod simulate mode coding-mode

# Switch modes (starts/stops services automatically)
gpumod mode switch coding-mode

# Launch interactive TUI
gpumod tui

MCP Integration

gpumod exposes 16 tools and 8 resources via the Model Context Protocol. Add it to your IDE to let AI assistants query GPU status, simulate VRAM, switch modes, discover models on HuggingFace, and consult an RLM-based reasoning engine for complex questions like "Can I run Qwen3-235B on 24GB?".

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "gpumod": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["--directory", "/path/to/gpumod", "run", "python", "-m", "gpumod.mcp_main"],
      "env": {
        "OTEL_SDK_DISABLED": "true"
      }
    }
  }
}

Important: gpumod depends on opentelemetry. Without OTEL_SDK_DISABLED=true, the SDK may print a startup message to stdout, which corrupts the JSON-RPC stream and causes MCP clients (Hermes, Claude Code, etc.) to fail with Failed to parse JSONRPC message from server.

See MCP Integration for setup instructions for Claude Code, Cursor, Claude Desktop, and Antigravity.

Configuration

All settings are configurable via environment variables with the GPUMOD_ prefix. A .env.example file is included in the repository root — copy it to .env and uncomment the variables you want to override.

Key settings include preflight thresholds (RAM/VRAM), LLM backend configuration, database path, and MCP rate limits. See Configuration for the full list.

Host Stability

On hosts where GPU services compete with desktop apps, browsers, and CI runners, the dominant failure mode is cudaHostAlloc hanging the NVIDIA driver when contiguous high-order pages are exhausted. gpumod ships three layers of defense:

1. Preflight RAMCheck — refuses to start services when MemAvailable is below a safe floor (model_size × 1.1 + 1024 MB).
2. vm.min_free_kbytes=1 GiB — installer at scripts/install-gpumod-sysctl.sh tells the kernel to keep more contiguous pages free at all times.
3. GGML_CUDA_NO_PINNED=1 is set by default in the llamacpp systemd template — cudaMallocHost is bypassed, eliminating the freeze class entirely with ~0.3% TPS cost (measured 2026-05-26).
4. Cgroup memory protection for code-server / SSH — installer at scripts/oom-protection/install.sh keeps the operator connected during heavy GPU loads.

After installation, run gpumod doctor sysctl and gpumod doctor oom-protection to verify the protections are in place.

Security

Input validation at every boundary, error sanitization, rate limiting, parameterized queries, sandboxed templates, and no shell=True. See Security for the full threat model.

Documentation

License

Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE for details.

Copyright 2026 Jaigouk Kim