For installing PyTorch, you can start from a fresh docker image, e.g, `rocm/pytorch:rocm6.2_ubuntu20.04_py3.9_pytorch_release_2.3.0`, `rocm/pytorch-nightly`.
Alternatively, you can install PyTorch using PyTorch wheels. You can check PyTorch installation guide in PyTorch [Getting Started](https://pytorch.org/get-started/locally/)
Install ROCm's Triton flash attention (the default triton-mlir branch) following the instructions from [ROCm/triton](https://github.com/ROCm/triton/blob/triton-mlir/README.md)
2. Optionally, if you choose to use CK flash attention, you can install [flash attention for ROCm](https://github.com/ROCm/flash-attention/tree/ck_tile)
Install ROCm's flash attention (v2.5.9.post1) following the instructions from [ROCm/flash-attention](https://github.com/ROCm/flash-attention/tree/ck_tile#amd-gpurocm-support)
Alternatively, wheels intended for vLLM use can be accessed under the releases.
- Triton flash attention is used by default. For benchmarking purposes, it is recommended to run a warm up step before collecting perf numbers.
- Triton flash attention does not currently support sliding window attention. If using half precision, please use CK flash-attention for sliding window support.
- To use CK flash-attention or PyTorch naive attention, please use this flag `export VLLM_USE_TRITON_FLASH_ATTN=0` to turn off triton flash attention.
- The ROCm version of PyTorch, ideally, should match the ROCm driver version.
- For MI300x (gfx942) users, to achieve optimal performance, please refer to [MI300x tuning guide](https://rocm.docs.amd.com/en/latest/how-to/tuning-guides/mi300x/index.html) for performance optimization and tuning tips on system and workflow level.
For vLLM, please refer to [vLLM performance optimization](https://rocm.docs.amd.com/en/latest/how-to/tuning-guides/mi300x/workload.html#vllm-performance-optimization).
Building the Docker image from source is the recommended way to use vLLM with ROCm.
First, build a docker image from <gh-file:Dockerfile.rocm> and launch a docker container from the image.
It is important that the user kicks off the docker build using buildkit. Either the user put DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 as environment variable when calling docker build command, or the user needs to setup buildkit in the docker daemon configuration /etc/docker/daemon.json as follows and restart the daemon:
```console
{
"features": {
"buildkit": true
}
}
```
<gh-file:Dockerfile.rocm> uses ROCm 6.2 by default, but also supports ROCm 5.7, 6.0 and 6.1 in older vLLM branches.
It provides flexibility to customize the build of docker image using the following arguments:
-`BASE_IMAGE`: specifies the base image used when running `docker build`. The default value `rocm/vllm-dev:base` is an image published and maintained by AMD. It is being built using <gh-file:Dockerfile.rocm_base>
-`USE_CYTHON`: An option to run cython compilation on a subset of python files upon docker build
-`BUILD_RPD`: Include RocmProfileData profiling tool in the image
-`ARG_PYTORCH_ROCM_ARCH`: Allows to override the gfx architecture values from the base docker image