Using Docker

Pre-built images

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Run as a non-root user

The CUDA vllm/vllm-openai image runs as root by default for backward compatibility. It is also prepared to run as the built-in vllm user (UID 2000, GID 0):

docker run --rm --gpus all \
    --user 2000:0 \
    -p 8000:8000 \
    vllm/vllm-openai:latest \
    meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct

When mounting model or cache volumes for a non-root container, mount writable paths under /home/vllm instead of /root. For example, mount the Hugging Face cache at /home/vllm/.cache/huggingface and make the mounted directory writable by group 0.

docker run --rm --gpus all \
    --user 2000:0 \
    -v ~/.cache/huggingface:/home/vllm/.cache/huggingface \
    -p 8000:8000 \
    vllm/vllm-openai:latest \
    meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct

To build an image that defaults to the non-root vllm user, use the opt-in vllm-openai-nonroot target:

docker build --target vllm-openai-nonroot \
    -t vllm-openai-nonroot:local \
    -f docker/Dockerfile .

docker run --rm --gpus all \
    -p 8000:8000 \
    vllm-openai-nonroot:local \
    meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct

The vllm-openai-nonroot target also supports OpenShift-style arbitrary UIDs when the runtime UID is a member of group 0. In Kubernetes manifests, set the container security context accordingly and keep mounted cache/model paths writable by group 0:

securityContext:
  runAsNonRoot: true
  runAsUser: 1000540000
  runAsGroup: 0
  fsGroup: 0

Runtime UIDs outside group 0 are not part of the documented support matrix because they may be unable to write to /home/vllm or /opt/uv/cache.

Build image from source

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