Provisioning GPU-Accelerated RISC‑V Nodes: IaC Patterns for NVLink-Enabled Clusters

Hook: If your team is struggling with fragmented toolchains, slow onboarding for specialized hardware, and unpredictable cloud spend when building heterogeneous clusters—especially those combining RISC‑V hosts with GPU fabrics—you need repeatable Infrastructure as Code patterns that take NVLink Fusion from paper to production. This guide gives you pragmatic Terraform + Ansible templates, bootstrapping scripts, and CI patterns (GitHub Actions) to provision, configure, and validate NVLink‑exposed nodes in 2026.

The executive picture (most important first)

NVLink Fusion—now surfacing across RISC‑V platforms—promises low-latency, coherent memory and tighter CPU↔GPU coupling. In late 2025 and into 2026, vendor collaborations (notably SiFive + NVIDIA announcements) accelerated availability of host-side NVLink fabrics for heterogeneous racks. For infra teams this means:

• New hardware dependencies: special firmware, kernel drivers, and fabric managers must be present before workloads can use NVLink.
• Provisioning shifts: you’ll mostly deploy on bare‑metal or sovereign clouds that support custom images and firmware selection—Terraform can manage that.
• Operational toolchain needs: Fabric managers, monitoring (DCGM), and container runtimes require Ansible-style post-provisioning to guarantee consistent state.

What this guide gives you

• Opinionated Terraform patterns to provision NVLink-capable bare‑metal nodes (Equinix Metal / MAAS examples).
• Ansible role + boot scripts to install NVLink drivers, enable fabric manager, and expose NVLink topology to Kubernetes & containers.
• CI/CD templates (GitHub Actions) to automate apply/run for Terraform and Ansible securely.
• Checklist, validation commands, and guidance for RISC‑V specific firmware/kernel handling.

The 2026 context: why this matters now

By 2026 the industry moved beyond simple GPU acceleration: heterogenous hosts (RISC‑V and Arm) tightly coupled to GPUs over NVLink are appearing in lab and early production. This change shifts provisioning from purely VM-based automation to firmware-aware bare‑metal pipelines. Also, sovereign cloud offerings and data-residency requirements (e.g., the 2026 EU sovereign clouds) make portability and auditable IaC more important.

"SiFive will integrate NVIDIA's NVLink Fusion infrastructure with its RISC‑V processor IP platforms." — industry coverage in late 2025 underscored vendor momentum for RISC‑V + NVLink Fusion.

High-level architecture and constraints

Design your cluster provisioning with these building blocks:

• Firmware layer: U‑Boot / vendor platform firmware with NVLink bindings and device tree entries (RISC‑V hosts will often require a vendor-supplied kernel/firmware).
• Host OS and kernel: Linux kernel with vendor NVLink and GPU drivers (may be packaged by vendor or built from source).
• Fabric manager: NVIDIA Fabric Manager or Fabric-aware daemon to initialize NVLink lanes and manage topology.
• Container runtime / orchestration: NVIDIA Container Toolkit, device plugin, and Kubernetes scheduling policies for heterogeneous hardware.
• Validation & telemetry: DCGM, nvidia-smi, and custom probes to assert NVLink topology and health.

Pattern A — Terraform for bare‑metal NVLink nodes (Equinix Metal example)

Many teams will choose bare‑metal providers (Equinix Metal, Packet, or on-prem MAAS) so that firmware and boot images can be controlled. Below is a compact Terraform pattern that: creates devices, attaches a custom image or iPXE, and injects cloud-init to bootstrap Ansible pull.

Key variables and assumptions

• You have an Equinix Metal project and API key.
• Vendor provides an NVLink-compatible firmware image or you'll use iPXE that points to a vendor kernel/initramfs.
• SSH keys are already in Terraform state.

Terraform module (simplified)

# providers.tf
provider "metal" {
  auth_token = var.equinix_api_token
}

# main.tf
resource "metal_device" "nvlink_node" {
  count       = var.node_count
  hostname    = "nvlink-node-${count.index}"
  plan        = var.plan     # choose a GPU-capable plan
  metro       = var.metro
  billing_cycle = "hourly"
  # Use a vendor-supplied custom image or iPXE script
  iPXE_script_url = var.ipxe_url
  project_id  = var.project_id

  # user_data triggers ansible-pull with the repo containing playbooks
  user_data = file("./cloud-init/nvlink-user-data.yaml")

  provisioning_ssh_key = var.ssh_key_id
}

output "nvlink_ips" {
  value = metal_device.nvlink_node.*.access_public_ipv4
}

cloud-init/nvlink-user-data.yaml (snippet):

#cloud-config
package_update: true
packages:
  - git
  - python3
runcmd:
  - [ sh, -lc, "curl -sfL https://get.ansible.com | sh || true" ]
  - [ sh, -lc, "ansible-pull -U https://github.com/your-org/nvlink-iac.git -C main playbooks/site.yml -i localhost, --accept-host-key" ]

Notes:

• Replace ipxe_url with your vendor iPXE that loads an NVLink-enabled kernel and vendor firmware.
• For MAAS or Ironic, replace metal_device with the appropriate provider resources and set the image/boot options.

Pattern B — Ansible role: nvlink_node (install + enable)

Post-provisioning, the Ansible role performs: kernel packages, GPU driver install, fabric manager, container runtime, and verification. Structure:

roles/nvlink_node/
├─ tasks/
│  ├─ main.yml
│  ├─ kernel.yml
│  ├─ drivers.yml
│  ├─ fabric.yml
│  └─ verify.yml
├─ handlers/
├─ templates/
└─ defaults/main.yml

tasks/main.yml (outline)

- name: Ensure kernel & firmware prerequisites
  import_tasks: kernel.yml

- name: Install NVIDIA drivers and toolkit
  import_tasks: drivers.yml

- name: Configure and start Fabric Manager
  import_tasks: fabric.yml

- name: Validate NVLink topology
  import_tasks: verify.yml

tasks/drivers.yml (critical steps)

- name: Add vendor package repo (Ubuntu example)
  apt_repository:
    repo: "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/vendor-archive-keyring.gpg] https://vendor.example/apt/ nvlink main"
    state: present

- name: Install NVIDIA drivers and tools
  apt:
    name:
      - nvidia-driver-{{ nvlink_driver_version }}
      - nvidia-fabricmanager-{{ fabric_version }}
      - nvidia-container-toolkit
      - nvidia-docker2
    state: latest
    update_cache: yes

- name: Enable fabricmanager
  systemd:
    name: nvidia-fabricmanager
    enabled: yes
    state: started

tasks/fabric.yml (extra care)

- name: Ensure kernel module is loaded
  modprobe:
    name: nvidia_nvlink
    state: present

- name: Persist module load
  lineinfile:
    path: /etc/modules-load.d/nvlink.conf
    line: nvidia_nvlink

tasks/verify.yml (quick diagnostics)

- name: Wait for nvidia-smi to be available
  wait_for:
    path: /usr/bin/nvidia-smi
    timeout: 60

- name: Check NVLink lanes and status
  command: /usr/bin/nvidia-smi nvlink --status
  register: nvlink_status

- name: Print NVLink status
  debug:
    var: nvlink_status.stdout

- name: Check topology matrix
  command: /usr/bin/nvidia-smi topo --matrix
  register: topo

- name: Print topology
  debug:
    var: topo.stdout

Replace package manager blocks for RHEL/CentOS with yum/dnf and vendor repos.

RISC‑V specific bootstrapping concerns

RISC‑V hosts require special handling compared to x86:

• Boot firmware: U‑Boot + device tree must expose NVLink nodes in the platform device tree. Work with your silicon vendor for a vendor image.
• Kernel: You may need a vendor-built kernel with NVLink patches — automate kernel installation via Ansible and include verification scripts to confirm driver/kernel ABI compatibility.
• Toolchain & cross-build: If you build kernel modules, include a CI pipeline that cross-compiles for the RISC‑V target and uploads artifacts to a CBIN or artifact repo used by Terraform user_data or your image builder.

Bootstrapping script example (simplified) for RISC‑V that downloads vendor firmware and installs kernel:

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail
VENDOR_URL="https://vendor.example/riscv/nvlink"
KIMG="vmlinuz-nvlink-riscv.img"
INITRD="initrd-nvlink-riscv.img"
FW="vendor-fw.bin"

curl -o /boot/${KIMG} ${VENDOR_URL}/${KIMG}
curl -o /boot/${INITRD} ${VENDOR_URL}/${INITRD}
curl -o /lib/firmware/${FW} ${VENDOR_URL}/${FW}

# update bootloader (U-Boot environment) example
fw_setenv bootcmd "ext4load mmc 0:1 0x80200000 /boot/${KIMG}; ext4load mmc 0:1 0x81000000 /boot/${INITRD}; booti 0x80200000 0x81000000"
reboot

Exposing NVLink to container orchestrators

To use NVLink from containers or Kubernetes, do the following:

1. Install NVIDIA Container Toolkit + nvidia-docker2 and configure the daemon to expose GPUs.
2. Deploy NVIDIA device plugin for Kubernetes (or use vendor plugin supporting NVLink-aware scheduling).
3. Use node labels & topology-aware scheduling so that pods that require NVLink-coherent pairs land on hosts with appropriate neighbor GPUs.
4. Enable NUMA and huge pages tuning for memory-intensive ML workloads.

Example kube-scheduler policy snippet (conceptual):

apiVersion: scheduling.k8s.io/v1
kind: PriorityClass
metadata:
  name: nvlink-sensitive
value: 1000000
globalDefault: false
description: "Schedule jobs that require NVLink fabric"

# NodeSelector in pod spec
nodeSelector:
  nvlink.topology: "pair-1"

CI/CD pattern — GitHub Actions for IaC + Ansible

Automate terraform apply and Ansible runs using separate jobs and secrets (never store private keys in repo). This pattern uses OIDC for Terraform state access and SSH keys fetched from a secrets manager.

# .github/workflows/provision.yml (excerpt)
name: Provision NVLink Nodes
on:
  workflow_dispatch:

permissions:
  id-token: write
  contents: read

jobs:
  terraform:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Setup Terraform
        uses: hashicorp/setup-terraform@v2
      - name: Authenticate to provider (OIDC or secrets)
        run: |-
          echo "Authenticate to cloud provider"
      - name: Terraform Init & Apply
        env:
          TF_VAR_project_id: ${{ secrets.PROJECT_ID }}
        run: |
          terraform init
          terraform apply -auto-approve

  ansible:
    needs: terraform
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Wait for nodes
        run: sleep 30
      - name: Run Ansible Playbook via SSH
        uses: dawidd6/action-ansible-playbook@v2
        with:
          playbook: playbooks/site.yml
        env:
          ANSIBLE_HOST_KEY_CHECKING: 'False'

Store SSH private key in GitHub Secrets and use OIDC to retrieve cloud API tokens when possible for improved security.

Validation and troubleshooting checklist

• Confirm vendor firmware and kernel are installed: check /lib/firmware and /boot entries.
• Verify kernel module: lsmod | grep nvidia_nvlink
• Validate fabric manager is active: systemctl status nvidia-fabricmanager
• Use nvidia-smi nvlink --status and nvidia-smi topo --matrix to confirm topology and lane health.
• Run DCGM health checks and export metrics to Prometheus/Grafana for long‑term monitoring.

Security, compliance, and cost considerations

• Sovereign clouds: If your workloads are subject to residency controls (e.g., EU sovereign clouds launched in 2026), ensure the provider supports bare‑metal or custom firmware images. Add a policy to your Terraform module to block provisioning outside approved regions.
• Firmware provenance: Treat vendor firmware as a sensitive artifact. Store signed firmware in an artifact repository and validate checksums during bootstrap.
• Cost controls: NVLink-enabled racks are expensive. Use Terraform to tag & schedule billing alerts and use spot/burst strategies for non-critical jobs.
• Access controls: Limit who can run the GitHub Actions workflows that call terraform apply. Use OIDC and least-privilege IAM roles.

Advanced strategies and production hardening

• Immutable images: Bake vendor kernel + drivers into immutable images with Packer. Use Terraform to deploy those images to bare‑metal or PXE servers to reduce runtime bootstrapping costs.
• Blue/Green firmware updates: NVLink firmware changes can be disruptive. Use staged updates: update a subset of nodes, validate fabric, then promote.
• Topology-aware scheduling: Extend the Kubernetes scheduler with a plugin that understands NVLink graph topology—this avoids suboptimal traffic across PCIe bridges.
• Testing with emulation: For CI, use emulation/lab harnesses that simulate NVLink topology to run basic functional tests before touching hardware-testbeds.

Patterns to avoid

• Don’t treat NVLink-capable nodes like standard VMs—firmware and boot order matter.
• Avoid one-off manual driver installs; codify them in Ansible roles and commit version pins.
• Don’t expose fabric firmware artifacts to public repos; keep them in signed, private artifact registries.

Practical takeaways (actionable checklist)

1. Inventory hardware: confirm vendor support for NVLink Fusion on the target RISC‑V platform.
2. Create a Terraform module that provisions bare‑metal devices and injects cloud‑init to pull Ansible artifacts.
3. Author an Ansible role that installs vendor kernel, NVIDIA drivers, Fabric Manager, and container runtime; include idempotent checks for nvlink status.
4. Set up GitHub Actions (or your CI) using OIDC and least-privilege secrets to automate apply + configure.
5. Implement monitoring: DCGM + Prometheus + Grafana dashboards for NVLink lane and GPU health.
6. Formalize firmware update policy and incorporate canary rollouts in Terraform/Ansible workflows.

Where to get the starter templates & downloadable boilerplate

We maintain a curated repository of starter templates that mirror the patterns above. The repo includes:

• Terraform module for Equinix Metal / MAAS / Ironic
• Ansible role nvlink_node with tasks, handlers, and verification playbooks
• Boot scripts for RISC‑V, U‑Boot snippets, and kernel packaging CI
• GitHub Actions workflows to run Terraform + Ansible via OIDC and a sample secrets integration

Clone the boilerplate and adapt it for your vendor images and compliance constraints. Replace vendor placeholders and add checksums for firmware artifacts before deployment.

Future predictions (2026+)

• More silicon IP vendors will ship NVLink-attached SoCs for RISC‑V and Arm, reducing the vendor lock-in for x86-only GPU fabrics.
• Fabric-aware orchestration plugins and scheduler extensions will become standard in Kubernetes distributions oriented to AI/ML workloads.
• Open-source tooling for NVLink validation and topology graphing will emerge, improving reproducible testing in CI.

Final notes: bridging hardware and IaC

Provisioning NVLink Fusion-enabled RISC‑V nodes is a cross-cutting problem: firmware engineering, OS packaging, driver lifecycle, and orchestration must be treated as a single pipeline. Terraform gives you repeatable provisioning; Ansible enforces runtime configuration; CI (GitHub Actions) ensures the pipeline is auditable and reproducible. Combine these layers, and you reduce onboarding time, mitigate configuration drift, and get cost predictability for your heterogeneous cluster fleet.

Download, test, and iterate — your next steps

Download the boilerplate (Terraform + Ansible + GitHub Actions) from the repo and run the following to test in a sandbox:

git clone https://github.com/your-org/nvlink-iac.git
cd nvlink-iac
# edit vars/terraform.tfvars with your provider credentials and vendor image URLs
terraform init
terraform apply -auto-approve
# wait for nodes, then trigger ansible via GH Actions or locally
ansible-playbook -i inventories/nvlink playbooks/site.yml

If you need vendor-specific help (custom boot images, vendor kernel packaging, or scheduler plugins), consider engaging with the silicon or GPU vendor early—firmware and device-tree issues are the most common blockers.

Call to action

Ready to accelerate your heterogeneous workloads with NVLink Fusion on RISC‑V? Download the starter templates, run the quickstart in your lab, and join our community to share test results and topology heuristics. Get the repo, examples, and CI templates here: https://github.com/your-org/nvlink-iac (replace with your fork) and open an issue with your hardware details—our engineers will help translate the patterns to your platform.

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