Running on Windows Using WSL

You can run the Decentralized LLM Standard subnet on Windows using WSL or Docker. In this guide, we will show you how to set up a subnet validator node on WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux).

Tutorial

1. This tutorial works on Windows 10-11 and NVIDIA GPUs with driver version >= 495 (this requirement is usually met for fresh installations).

   If you have an AMD GPU, please proceed until you have errors, then upgrade to a patched version of the Subnet mentioned in the AMD GPU tutorial.

2. Launch Windows PowerShell as an Administrator, and install WSL 2:

   wsl.exe --install

   If you previously had WSL 1, please upgrade as explained here.

3. Update WSL, if needed:

   wsl.exe --update

4. Open WSL, and check that GPUs are available:

   nvidia-smi

5. In WSL, install basic Python stuff:

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install python3-pip python-is-python3

6. Then, clone the Subnet repository:

   git clone https://github.com/hypertensor-blockchain/dsn.git

7. In the directory, check torch was installed by returning True:

   python3 -c "import torch; print(torch.cuda.is_available())"

8. See Getting Started.

Got an error? Check out the "Troubleshooting" page. Most errors are covered there and are easy to fix, including:

• hivemind.dht.protocol.ValidationError: local time must be within 3 seconds of others

• Killed

• torch.cuda.OutOfMemoryError: CUDA out of memory

• If your error is not covered there, let us know in Discord and we will help!

Want to share multiple GPUs? In this case, you'd need to run a separate Subnet validator server for each GPU. Open a separate WSL console for each GPU, then run this in the first console:

CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=0 python -m subnet.cli.run_server Orenguteng/Llama-3.1-8B-Lexi-Uncensored-V2

Do the same for each console, replacing CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=0 with CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=1, CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=2, etc.

1. Once all blocks are loaded, check that your server is available on https://dashboard.hypertensor.org If your server is listed as available through a "Relay", please read the section below.

Making the server directly available

If you have a NAT or a firewall, the DSN (Decentralized Subnet) standard will use relays for NAT/firewall traversal by default, which negatively impacts performance. If your computer has a public IP address, we strongly recommend setting up port forwarding to make the server available directly.

We explain how to do it below:

1. Create the .wslconfig file in your user's home directory in Windows with the following contents:

   [wsl2]
   localhostforwarding=true

2. In WSL, find out the IP address of your WSL container (172.X.X.X):

   sudo apt install net-tools
   ifconfig

3. In Windows (PowerShell), allow traffic to be routed into the WSL container (replace 172.X.X.X with the IP address (inet broadcast) from step 2):

   netsh interface portproxy add v4tov4 listenport=31330 listenaddress=0.0.0.0 connectport=31330 connectaddress=172.X.X.X

4. Set up your firewall (e.g., Windows Defender) to allow traffic from the outside world to the port 31330/tcp.

   1. You can also add an inbound rule for the port in the Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security settings.

5. If you have a router, set it up to allow connections from the outside world (port 31330/tcp) to your computer (port 31330/tcp).

Relay servers in the Decentralized LLM Standard subnet receive lesser rewards by default.