Dockerfiles of verl

We provide pre-built Docker images for quick setup. And from this version, we utilize a new image release hierarchy for productivity and stability.

Start from v0.6.0, we use vllm and sglang release image as our base image.

Start from v0.7.0, since vllm/vllm-openai:v0.12.0 is a minimal image without some essential libraries, we use nvidia/cuda:12.9.1-devel-ubuntu22.04 as our base image for vllm.

Base Image

• vLLM: https://hub.docker.com/r/nvidia/cuda
• SGLang: https://hub.docker.com/r/lmsysorg/sglang

Application Image

Upon base image, the following packages are added:

• flash_attn
• Megatron-LM
• Apex
• TransformerEngine
• DeepEP

Latest docker file:

• Dockerfile.stable.vllm
• Dockerfile.stable.sglang

All pre-built images are available in dockerhub: https://hub.docker.com/r/verlai/verl. For example, verlai/verl:sgl059.latest, verlai/verl:vllm017.latest.

You can find the latest images used for development and ci in our github workflows:

• .github/workflows/vllm.yml
• .github/workflows/sgl.yml

Installation from Docker

After pulling the desired Docker image and installing desired inference and training frameworks, you can run it with the following steps:

1. Launch the desired Docker image and attach into it:

docker create --runtime=nvidia --gpus all --net=host --shm-size="10g" --cap-add=SYS_ADMIN -v .:/workspace/verl --name verl <image:tag> sleep infinity
docker start verl
docker exec -it verl bash

2. If you use the images provided, you only need to install verl itself without dependencies:

# install the nightly version (recommended)
git clone https://github.com/volcengine/verl && cd verl
pip3 install --no-deps -e .

[Optional] If you hope to switch between different frameworks, you can install verl with the following command:

# install the nightly version (recommended)
git clone https://github.com/volcengine/verl && cd verl
pip3 install -e .[vllm]
pip3 install -e .[sglang]

Release History

• 2026/03/10: update vllm stable image to vllm==0.17.0; update sglang stable image to sglang==0.5.9
• 2026/01/17: update vllm stable image to torch==2.9.1, cudnn==9.16, deepep==1.2.1
• 2025/12/23: update vllm stable image to vllm==0.12.0; update sglang stable image to sglang==0.5.6
• 2025/11/18: update vllm stable image to vllm==0.11.1; update sglang stable image to sglang==0.5.5