Install on Linux & Mac

Installation

Installation on Linux and macOS follow the same instructions, given below.

Install NNI through pip

Prerequisite: python 64-bit >= 3.5

python3 -m pip install --upgrade nni

Install NNI through source code

If you are interested in special or the latest code versions, you can install NNI through source code.

Prerequisites: python 64-bit >=3.5, git, wget

git clone -b v1.5 https://github.com/Microsoft/nni.git
cd nni
./install.sh

Use NNI in a docker image

You can also install NNI in a docker image. Please follow the instructions here to build an NNI docker image. The NNI docker image can also be retrieved from Docker Hub through the command docker pull msranni/nni:latest.

Verify installation

The following example is built on TensorFlow 1.x. Make sure TensorFlow 1.x is used when running it.

  • Download the examples via cloning the source code.

    git clone -b v1.5 https://github.com/Microsoft/nni.git
    
  • Run the MNIST example.

    nnictl create --config nni/examples/trials/mnist-tfv1/config.yml
    
  • Wait for the message INFO: Successfully started experiment! in the command line. This message indicates that your experiment has been successfully started. You can explore the experiment using the Web UI url.

INFO: Starting restful server...
INFO: Successfully started Restful server!
INFO: Setting local config...
INFO: Successfully set local config!
INFO: Starting experiment...
INFO: Successfully started experiment!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The experiment id is egchD4qy
The Web UI urls are: http://223.255.255.1:8080   http://127.0.0.1:8080
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

You can use these commands to get more information about the experiment
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
         commands                       description
1. nnictl experiment show        show the information of experiments
2. nnictl trial ls               list all of trial jobs
3. nnictl top                    monitor the status of running experiments
4. nnictl log stderr             show stderr log content
5. nnictl log stdout             show stdout log content
6. nnictl stop                   stop an experiment
7. nnictl trial kill             kill a trial job by id
8. nnictl --help                 get help information about nnictl
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
  • Open the Web UI url in your browser, you can view detailed information about the experiment and all the submitted trial jobs as shown below. Here are more Web UI pages.

../_images/webui_overview_page.pngoverview

../_images/webui_trialdetail_page.pngdetail

System requirements

Due to potential programming changes, the minimum system requirements of NNI may change over time.

Linux

Recommended Minimum
Operating System Ubuntu 16.04 or above
CPU Intel® Core™ i5 or AMD Phenom™ II X3 or better Intel® Core™ i3 or AMD Phenom™ X3 8650
GPU NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660 or better NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 460
Memory 6 GB RAM 4 GB RAM
Storage 30 GB available hare drive space
Internet Boardband internet connection
Resolution 1024 x 768 minimum display resolution

macOS

Recommended Minimum
Operating System macOS 10.14.1 or above
CPU Intel® Core™ i7-4770 or better Intel® Core™ i5-760 or better
GPU AMD Radeon™ R9 M395X or better NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 750M or AMD Radeon™ R9 M290 or better
Memory 8 GB RAM 4 GB RAM
Storage 70GB available space SSD 70GB available space 7200 RPM HDD
Internet Boardband internet connection
Resolution 1024 x 768 minimum display resolution