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# Copyright 2026 Google LLC
#
# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
# You may obtain a copy of the License at
#
# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
#
# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
# limitations under the License.

apiVersion: v2
name: a4x_max_jobset_workload
description: a4x_max_jobset_workload
type: application
version: 0.1.0
appVersion: "1.16.0"
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<!-- mdformat global-off -->
# Pretrain llama3-1-405b workloads on a4x-max GKE Node pools with Nvidia Megatron-Bridge Framework

This recipe outlines the steps for running a llama3-1-405b pretraining
workload on [a4x-max GKE Node pools](https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine) by using the
[Megatron-Bridge pretraining workload](https://github.com/NVIDIA-NeMo/Megatron-Bridge).

## Orchestration and deployment tools

For this recipe, the following setup is used:

- Orchestration - [Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)](https://cloud.google.com/kubernetes-engine)
- Pretraining job configuration and deployment - A Helm chart is used to
configure and deploy the [Kubernetes Jobset](https://kubernetes.io/blog/2025/03/23/introducing-jobset) resource which manages the execution of the
[Megatron-Bridge pretraining workload](https://github.com/NVIDIA-NeMo/Megatron-Bridge).

## Test environment

This recipe has been optimized for and tested with the following configuration:

- GKE cluster
Please follow Cluster Toolkit [instructions](https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/cluster-toolkit/)
to create your a4x-max GKE cluster.

## Training dataset

This recipe uses a mock pretraining dataset provided by the Megatron-Bridge framework.

## Docker container image

This recipe uses the following docker images:

- `nvcr.io/nvidia/nemo:26.06.01`
**Installed Plugins:**
- `nccl-gib-plugins` version: 1.1.2-1

## Run the recipe

From your client workstation, complete the following steps:

### Configure environment settings

Set the environment variables to match your environment:

```bash
export PROJECT_ID=<PROJECT_ID>
export CLUSTER_REGION=<CLUSTER_REGION>
export CLUSTER_NAME=<CLUSTER_NAME>
export GCS_BUCKET=<GCS_BUCKET> # Note: path should not be prefixed with gs://
export KUEUE_NAME=<KUEUE_NAME>
export HF_TOKEN=<YOUR_HF_TOKEN>
```

Replace the following values:

- `<PROJECT_ID>`: your Google Cloud project ID.
- `<CLUSTER_REGION>`: the region where your cluster is located.
- `<CLUSTER_NAME>`: the name of your GKE cluster.
- `<GCS_BUCKET>`: the name of your Cloud Storage bucket. Don't include the `gs://` prefix.
- `<KUEUE_NAME>`: the name of the Kueue local queue. The default queue created by the cluster toolkit is `a4x-max`. Make sure to verify the name of the local queue in your cluster.
- `<YOUR_HF_TOKEN>`: Your HuggingFace token.

Set the default project:

```bash
gcloud config set project $PROJECT_ID
```

### Get the recipe

Clone the `gpu-recipes` repository and set a reference to the recipe folder.

```
git clone https://github.com/ai-hypercomputer/gpu-recipes.git
cd gpu-recipes
export REPO_ROOT=`git rev-parse --show-toplevel`
export RECIPE_ROOT=$REPO_ROOT/training/a4x-max/llama3-1-405b/megatron-bridge-gke/nemo2606/256gpus-fp8mx-seq8192-gbs1536/recipe
cd $RECIPE_ROOT
```

### Get cluster credentials

```
gcloud container clusters get-credentials $CLUSTER_NAME --region $CLUSTER_REGION
```

### Configure and submit a pretraining job

#### Using 64 node (256 gpus) fp8mx precision
To execute the job with the default settings, run the following command from
your client:

```bash
cd $RECIPE_ROOT
export WORKLOAD_NAME=$USER-a4x-max-llama3-1-405b-256gpus

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medium

Using $USER directly in the WORKLOAD_NAME can cause Helm installation failures if the user's username contains uppercase letters, underscores, or other characters that do not conform to Kubernetes RFC 1123 naming standards (which only allow lowercase alphanumeric characters, '-' or '.'). Sanitizing the username using tr ensures a valid resource name.

Suggested change
export WORKLOAD_NAME=$USER-a4x-max-llama3-1-405b-256gpus
export WORKLOAD_NAME=$(echo "${USER}-a4x-max-llama3-1-405b-256gpus" | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' | tr '_' '-')

helm install $WORKLOAD_NAME . -f values.yaml \
--set-file workload_launcher=launcher.sh \
--set workload.image=nvcr.io/nvidia/nemo:26.06.01 \
--set volumes.gcsMounts[0].bucketName=${GCS_BUCKET} \
--set volumes.gcsMounts[0].mountPath=/job-logs \
--set workload.envs[0].value=/job-logs/$WORKLOAD_NAME \
--set queue=${KUEUE_NAME}
```

**Examples**

- To set the number of training steps to 100, run the following command from
your client:

```bash
cd $RECIPE_ROOT
export WORKLOAD_NAME=$USER-a4x-max-llama3-1-405b-256gpus
helm install $WORKLOAD_NAME . -f values.yaml \
--set-file workload_launcher=launcher.sh \
--set workload.image=nvcr.io/nvidia/nemo:26.06.01 \
--set volumes.gcsMounts[0].bucketName=${GCS_BUCKET} \
--set volumes.gcsMounts[0].mountPath=/job-logs \
--set workload.envs[0].value=/job-logs/$WORKLOAD_NAME \
--set queue=${KUEUE_NAME} \
--set workload.arguments[0]="trainer.max_steps=100"
```

### Monitor the job

To check the status of pods in your job, run the following command:

```
kubectl get pods | grep $USER-a4x-max-llama3-1-405b-256gpus
```

Replace the following:

- JOB_NAME_PREFIX - your job name prefix. For example $USER-a4x-max-llama3-1-405b-256gpus.

To get the logs for one of the pods, run the following command:

```
kubectl logs POD_NAME
```

Information about the training job's progress, including crucial details such as
loss, step count, and step time, is generated by the rank 0 process.
This process runs on the pod whose name begins with
`JOB_NAME_PREFIX-workload-0-0`.
For example: `$USER-a4x-max-llama3-1-405b-256gpus-workload-0-0-s9zrv`.

### Uninstall the Helm release

You can delete the job and other resources created by the Helm chart. To
uninstall Helm, run the following command from your client:

```bash
helm uninstall $USER-a4x-max-llama3-1-405b-256gpus
```
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usage()
{
cat << EOF
usage: bash ./launcher.sh [config-override [config-override ...]]
config-override (Optional) A NeMo configuration override. E.g. trainer.max_steps=10000.
EOF
}

parse_args() {
while [[ "$1" != "" ]]; do
case $(grep -o "=" <<< "$1" | wc -l) in
1 )
config_overrides+=("$1")
;;
* )
echo "Invalid config override: $1"
usage
exit 1
esac
shift
done
config_overrides="${config_overrides[*]}"
}

config_overrides=()
parse_args "$@"

if [[ -z "${config_overrides[*]}" ]]; then
echo "No NeMo config overrides specified"
else
echo "NeMo config overrides:"
echo " ${config_overrides}"
fi

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/cuda/compat/lib:$NCCL_PLUGIN_PATH:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
ldconfig "$LD_LIBRARY_PATH"
echo "Added $LD_LIBRARY_PATH to ldconfig:"
ldconfig -p | grep libcuda | sed 's/^/ /'
echo ""

if [[ -n "${EXPLICIT_LOG_DIR}" ]]; then
explicit_log_dir="${EXPLICIT_LOG_DIR}"
else
explicit_log_dir="workload_logs"
fi

# Ensure explicit_log_dir is an absolute path before any cd commands
if [[ "$explicit_log_dir" != /* ]]; then
explicit_log_dir="${PWD}/${explicit_log_dir}"
fi
echo "Logging to ${explicit_log_dir}"

if [[ -n "${TOKENIZER_PATH}" ]]; then
echo "Getting tokenizer files"
cp "${TOKENIZER_PATH}"/* .
echo ""
fi

echo "Launching Torch distributed on the node rank $JOB_COMPLETION_INDEX out of $NNODES nodes"

# Create the nsys directory.
mkdir -p "${explicit_log_dir}/nsys"

# Collect diagnostics
linux_kv="$(uname --kernel-release)"
cuda_driver_v=""
driver_v=""
vbios_v=""
if command -v nvidia-smi &> /dev/null; then
cuda_driver_v=$(nvidia-smi -q -x | grep -Po '(?<=<cuda_version>).*(?=</cuda_version>)' || true)
driver_v=$(nvidia-smi -q -x | grep -Po '(?<=<driver_version>).*(?=</driver_version>)' || true)
vbios_v=$(nvidia-smi -q -x | grep -Po '(?<=<vbios_version>).*(?=</vbios_version>)' | head -n1 || true)
fi
nccl_v=$(python3 -c "import torch; v=torch.cuda.nccl.version() if hasattr(torch.cuda, 'nccl') else 'unknown'; print('.'.join(map(str, v)) if isinstance(v, tuple) else v)" || echo "unknown")
cuda_container_v=$(python3 -c "import torch; print(torch.version.cuda)" || echo "unknown")

kv="{\"linux_kernel_version\": \"${linux_kv}\""
kv="${kv}, \"cuda_driver_version\": \"${cuda_driver_v}\""
kv="${kv}, \"cuda_container_version\": \"${cuda_container_v}\""
kv="${kv}, \"gpu_driver_version\": \"${driver_v}\""
kv="${kv}, \"vbios_version\": \"${vbios_v}\""
kv="${kv}, \"nccl_version\": \"${nccl_v}\"}"

echo "VERSION_DIAGNOSTICS: ${kv}"


export HF_TOKEN=<YOUR_HF_TOKEN>

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high

Hardcoding export HF_TOKEN=<YOUR_HF_TOKEN> in the launcher script will overwrite any HF_TOKEN environment variable passed to the container with the literal string <YOUR_HF_TOKEN>. Since the token is sensitive, it should be passed securely via Kubernetes Secrets and referenced in the environment variables, rather than being hardcoded or templated directly in the script.

Suggested change
export HF_TOKEN=<YOUR_HF_TOKEN>
if [[ -z "${HF_TOKEN}" ]]; then
echo "Warning: HF_TOKEN is not set. Hugging Face downloads may fail if authentication is required."
fi

export PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1
export CUDA_DEVICE_MAX_CONNECTIONS=32
export NCCL_P2P_NET_CHUNKSIZE=2097152
export NVTE_BWD_LAYERNORM_SM_MARGIN=16
export NVTE_FWD_LAYERNORM_SM_MARGIN=16
export NCCL_RAS_ENABLE=0

cd /opt
rm -rf Megatron-Bridge
git clone https://github.com/NVIDIA-NeMo/Megatron-Bridge.git
cd Megatron-Bridge
git checkout 5cb3444c43f7499cf3872b2d46870cf8bc2e00ce
git submodule update --init --recursive && sed -i 's/timeout=60/timeout=600/g' src/megatron/bridge/models/hf_pretrained/safe_config_loader.py
sed -i -e '/pretrain(config=recipe/i \ recipe.dist.distributed_timeout_minutes = 10' scripts/performance/run_script.py
ls



worker_command=$(cat <<- EOM
if [ "\$RANK" -eq "0" ]; then
echo "Worker 0 is stalling for a few seconds.." ;
sleep 3 ;
echo "The detected environment within worker rank 0 is:" ;
env | sed 's/^/ /' ;
else
echo "Worker \$RANK is running" ;
fi ;

cd /opt/Megatron-Bridge ;

numactl \
--cpunodebind=\$((LOCAL_RANK/2)) \
--membind=\$((LOCAL_RANK/2)) \
nice -10 \
python scripts/performance/run_script.py \
--model_family_name llama \
--model_recipe_name llama31_405b \
--config_variant v2 \
--gpu gb300 \
--num_gpus 256 \
--gpus_per_node 4 \
--compute_dtype fp8_mx \
--seq_length 8192 \
--global_batch_size 1536 \
--micro_batch_size 1 \
--tensor_model_parallel_size 2 \
--pipeline_model_parallel_size 8 \
--virtual_pipeline_model_parallel_size 4 \
--context_parallel_size 2 \
--expert_model_parallel_size 1 \
--expert_tensor_parallel_size 1 \
--max_step 50 \
logger.log_throughput=True \
train.manual_gc_interval=100
EOM
)
Comment on lines +106 to +143

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medium

Using an unquoted heredoc delimiter cat <<- EOM causes the shell to perform parameter expansion and command substitution at definition time. This forces you to escape variables like \$RANK and \$((LOCAL_RANK/2)). Quoting the delimiter as cat <<- 'EOM' prevents this expansion, making the script cleaner and less error-prone.

worker_command=$(cat <<- 'EOM'
  if [ "$RANK" -eq "0" ]; then
    echo "Worker 0 is stalling for a few seconds.." ;
    sleep 3 ;
    echo "The detected environment within worker rank 0 is:" ;
    env | sed 's/^/  /' ;
  else
    echo "Worker $RANK is running" ;
  fi ;

  cd /opt/Megatron-Bridge ;

  numactl 
    --cpunodebind=$((LOCAL_RANK/2)) 
    --membind=$((LOCAL_RANK/2)) 
  nice -10 
  python scripts/performance/run_script.py 
    --model_family_name llama 
    --model_recipe_name llama31_405b 
    --config_variant v2 
    --gpu gb300 
    --num_gpus 256 
    --gpus_per_node 4 
    --compute_dtype fp8_mx 
    --seq_length 8192 
    --global_batch_size 1536 
    --micro_batch_size 1 
    --tensor_model_parallel_size 2 
    --pipeline_model_parallel_size 8 
    --virtual_pipeline_model_parallel_size 4 
    --context_parallel_size 2 
    --expert_model_parallel_size 1 
    --expert_tensor_parallel_size 1 
    --max_step 50 
    logger.log_throughput=True 
    train.manual_gc_interval=100
EOM
)


echo "$worker_command" > worker_command.sh
chmod 777 worker_command.sh

torchrun \
--nproc-per-node="4" \
--nnodes="64" \
--node_rank="${JOB_COMPLETION_INDEX}" \
--rdzv_id="${JOB_IDENTIFIER}" \
--master_addr="${MASTER_ADDR}" \
--master_port="${MASTER_PORT}" \
--no-python stdbuf -oL -eL bash worker_command.sh 2>&1 | awk '{ print strftime("[%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S]"), $0; fflush(); }'

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medium

Using strftime in awk is a GNU awk (gawk) extension. In many minimal container images (including Ubuntu-based ones), the default awk is mawk, which does not support strftime and will crash with a syntax error. Since Python 3 is guaranteed to be installed in this environment, you can use a portable Python one-liner to prepend timestamps to stdout/stderr unbuffered.

Suggested change
--no-python stdbuf -oL -eL bash worker_command.sh 2>&1 | awk '{ print strftime("[%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S]"), $0; fflush(); }'
--no-python stdbuf -oL -eL bash worker_command.sh 2>&1 | python3 -u -c 'import sys, datetime; [sys.stdout.write(f"[{datetime.datetime.now().strftime(\"%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S\")}]: {line}") for line in iter(sys.stdin.readline, "")]'




if [[ "$JOB_COMPLETION_INDEX" == "0" ]]; then
mkdir -p "${ARTIFACT_DIR}"
cp -r "${explicit_log_dir}"/* "${ARTIFACT_DIR}/"
env > "${ARTIFACT_DIR}/environ.txt"
ls "${ARTIFACT_DIR}"
fi
echo "Training completed"
echo "Pod on $(hostname --fqdn) is exiting"
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# yamllint disable
# Copyright 2026 Google LLC
#
# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
# You may obtain a copy of the License at
#
# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
#
# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
# limitations under the License.

{{- if .Values.workload.configFile }}
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
name: "{{ .Release.Name }}-config"
data:
workload-configuration: |-
{{- if .Values.workload_config }}
{{ .Values.workload_config | nindent 4 }}
{{- else }}
{{ "config: null" | nindent 4 }}
{{- end }}
{{- end }}
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