Virtual Environments

Poplar SDK Setup

The Poplar SDK is downloaded onto the graphcore systems at the /software/graphcore/poplar_sdk/ location. The default poplar version (3.3.0) is enabled automatically upon logging into a graphcore node.

Check if Poplar is setup correctly:

popc --version

One should see:

POPLAR version 3.3.0 (de1f8de2a7)
clang version 16.0.0 (2fce0648f3c328b23a6cbc664fc0dd0630122212)

If the Poplar SDK is not enabled, it can be enabled with

source /software/graphcore/poplar_sdk/3.3.0/enable

To disable the current Poplar SDK, e.g. if one wants to use a different Poplar SDK, follow the steps below. (Otherwise, skip to section Miscellaneous Environment Variables.) This example assumes that the current installed SDK is 3.1.0 and you want to move to 3.3.0

Check the current version

 $ popc --version
 POPLAR version 3.1.0 (e12d5f9f01)
 clang version 15.0.0 (bab932b4fc4cdb58bb009370384b2c41579bd9d9)

Unset the current version
```
unset POPLAR_SDK_ENABLED
```

Enable poplar and popart

source /software/graphcore/poplar_sdk/3.3.0/poplar-ubuntu_20_04-3.3.0+7857-b67b751185/enable.sh 
source /software/graphcore/poplar_sdk/3.3.0/popart-ubuntu_20_04-3.3.0+7857-b67b751185/enable.sh

Recheck for the new version.

$popc --version
POPLAR version 3.3.0 (de1f8de2a7)
clang version 16.0.0 (2fce0648f3c328b23a6cbc664fc0dd0630122212)

Set SDK env variable

POPLAR_SDK_ROOT=/software/graphcore/poplar_sdk/3.3.0/
export POPLAR_SDK_ROOT=$POPLAR_SDK_ROOT

Create a new virtual environment with this SDK and install popTorch and or other frameworks as needed.

virtualenv ~/Graphcore/workspace/poptorch33_env
source ~/Graphcore/workspace/poptorch33_env/bin/activate
pip install $POPLAR_SDK_ROOT/poptorch-3.3.0+113432_960e9c294b_ubuntu_20_04-cp38-cp38-linux_x86_64.whl
export PYTHONPATH=$POPLAR_SDK_ROOT/python:$PYTHONPATH

Miscellaneous Environment Variables

mkdir ~/tmp
export TF_POPLAR_FLAGS=--executable_cache_path=~/tmp
export POPTORCH_CACHE_DIR=~/tmp

export POPART_LOG_LEVEL=WARN
export POPLAR_LOG_LEVEL=WARN
export POPLIBS_LOG_LEVEL=WARN

export PYTHONPATH=/software/graphcore/poplar_sdk/3.3.0/poplar-ubuntu_20_04-3.3.0+7857-b67b751185/python:$PYTHONPATH

PopTorch Environment Setup

PopTorch is an extension of the Pytorch framework that is optimized for the IPU specific functionality. To activate the PopTorch environment, first create a virtual environment and activate it.

mkdir -p ~/venvs/graphcore
virtualenv ~/venvs/graphcore/poptorch33_env
source ~/venvs/graphcore/poptorch33_env/bin/activate

Use the following commands to install the PopTorch environment.

POPLAR_SDK_ROOT=/software/graphcore/poplar_sdk/3.3.0
export POPLAR_SDK_ROOT=$POPLAR_SDK_ROOT
pip install $POPLAR_SDK_ROOT/poptorch-3.3.0+113432_960e9c294b_ubuntu_20_04-cp38-cp38-linux_x86_64.whl

TensorFlow 2 Environment Setup

The Poplar SDK provides TensorFlow and Keras wheels built on 2.6 that includes the IPU specific functionality and optimized for the AMD processors. It can be installed as follows.

Create virtual environment.

virtualenv ~/venvs/graphcore/tensorflow2_33_env
source ~/venvs/graphcore/tensorflow2_33_env/bin/activate

Install the TensorFlow and Keras wheels.

POPLAR_SDK_ROOT=/software/graphcore/poplar_sdk/3.3.0
export POPLAR_SDK_ROOT=$POPLAR_SDK_ROOT
pip install $POPLAR_SDK_ROOT/tensorflow-2.6.3+gc3.3.0+251580+08d96978c7f+amd_znver1-cp38-cp38-linux_x86_64.whl
pip install $POPLAR_SDK_ROOT/keras-2.6.0+gc3.3.0+251582+a3785372-py2.py3-none-any.whl

Verify Installation

python -c "from tensorflow.python import ipu"

You should see:

2023-08-22 21:53:26.109934: I tensorflow/compiler/plugin/poplar/driver/poplar_platform.cc:43] Poplar version: 3.3.0 (de1f8de2a7) Poplar package: b67b751185

Installing Packages

Install packages in the normal manner such as:

python3 -m pip install "some_package"

For more details see Use pip for installing.

To install a different version of a package that is already installed in one's environment, one can use:

pip install --ignore-installed  ... # or -I

Note: Conda is not supported on the Graphcore system.