Requirements

Get your miner server and GPU nodes ready before deploying.

Miner Server

A Linux machine that orchestrates access to your GPU nodes. CPU only, no GPU required.

Public IP address (or port forwarding for axon port)
SSH access to all your GPU nodes

If building from source:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y \
    build-essential libssl-dev pkg-config protobuf-compiler git curl

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

If deploying via Docker/Docker Compose:

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sudo sh
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Your GPU nodes are your offering to the network. They must be bare metal or VMs, not containers. We need full access to the machine and its networking stack. Docker-in-Docker and SSH inside containers are not supported.

Each GPU node needs the following.

Supported GPUs

A100, H100, H200, B200. Check the current configuration to confirm your GPU type is earning emissions.

NVIDIA Drivers + CUDA

CUDA 12.8 or higher. Verify with:

nvidia-smi

Docker + NVIDIA Container Toolkit

# Install Docker
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sudo sh

# Install NVIDIA Container Toolkit
distribution=$(. /etc/os-release;echo $ID$VERSION_ID)
curl -fsSL https://nvidia.github.io/libnvidia-container/gpgkey | \
    sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/nvidia-container-toolkit-keyring.gpg
curl -s -L https://nvidia.github.io/libnvidia-container/$distribution/libnvidia-container.list | \
    sed 's#deb https://#deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/nvidia-container-toolkit-keyring.gpg] https://#g' | \
    sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nvidia-container-toolkit.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y nvidia-container-toolkit
sudo nvidia-ctk runtime configure --runtime=docker
sudo systemctl restart docker

# Verify GPU access in Docker
docker run --rm --gpus all nvidia/cuda:12.8.0-base-ubuntu24.04 nvidia-smi

Set up a dedicated user

Create a basilica user with Docker access:

sudo useradd -m -s /bin/bash basilica
sudo usermod -aG docker basilica

# Set up SSH
sudo -u basilica mkdir -p /home/basilica/.ssh
sudo chmod 700 /home/basilica/.ssh
sudo -u basilica touch /home/basilica/.ssh/authorized_keys
sudo chmod 600 /home/basilica/.ssh/authorized_keys

Verify the user can access GPUs:

sudo -u basilica docker run --rm --gpus all nvidia/cuda:12.8.0-base-ubuntu24.04 nvidia-smi

Network

SSH server running and accessible from the miner server and the validator
Firewall allows inbound SSH from both miner and validator IPs
The validator controls which additional ports need open internet access

# Allow SSH (UFW)
sudo ufw allow 22/tcp

Disk space

At least 1TB of free disk space. This can be on the root mount or a dedicated NVMe/SSD mount.

If your storage is on a separate device, mount it on the host and declare it in your node config. The validator will make it available to rental containers.

Register your Bittensor wallet

pip install bittensor

# Create wallet
btcli wallet new_coldkey --wallet.name miner_wallet
btcli wallet new_hotkey --wallet.name miner_wallet --wallet.hotkey default

# Register on mainnet
btcli subnet register --netuid 39 --wallet.name miner_wallet --wallet.hotkey default

Before you proceed

Verify each GPU node has:

NVIDIA drivers installed (nvidia-smi works)
Docker with NVIDIA runtime (docker run --gpus all works)
Dedicated basilica user in docker group
SSH server running and accessible
1TB+ free disk space (root mount or dedicated storage mount)
Firewall allows SSH from miner + validator

Next Steps

Setup: Configure SSH keys, miner.toml, and deploy