Snap recipe for the Intel NPU Driver. This snap is designed to be a producer snap providing NPU (neural processing unit) firmware, char device node access, and user-space libraries (including the user mode driver and NPU compiler) for consumption by application snaps. It exposes slots for consumer snaps to connect to (see below) but also provides firmware binary blobs for the NPU device and packages an app for validating the user space driver (vpu-umd-test).
The vpu-umd-test user mode driver validation tool is used to validate the snap with the following host OS + kernel on a Intel Core Ultra 7 155H.
| Host OS | Kernel Version | NPU Kernel Driver Support | Test Results | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22.04 | 5.15 | ❌ | N/A | Standard 22.04 kernel |
| 22.04 | 6.8 | ✅ | 184/199 passed | Hardware enablement (HWE) kernel |
| 24.04 | 6.8 | ✅ | 184/199 passed | Standard 24.04 kernel |
| 24.10 | 6.11 | ✅ | 190/199 passed | Proposed 24.10 kernel |
Skipped tests on kernel 6.8 and lower only:
- Metric streamer feature missing from
intel_vpukernel module (6 tests)
Skipped tests common across all host OS and kernel versions:
- GPU driver not present (2 tests)
- DMA capabilities require tests to be run as root (3 tests)
- Compiler in driver tests under investigation (3 tests)
- Command queue priority under investigation (1 test)
Important note: run snapcraft in the current directory in order for the install hook to get integrated with the snap correctly.
Build the snap:
snapcraft
sudo snap install --dangerous ./intel-npu-driver_*_amd64.snap
Note that this triggers an install hook that copies the firmware binary blobs to /var/snap/intel-npu-driver/current so that they are accessible to the kernel driver running on the host.
- intel-npu: provides access to the NPU device node on the host
- npu-libs: provides access to NPU libs, namely the NPU user mode driver with compiler
Customizing the intel_vpu kernel module's firmware search path is handled by a daemon packaged within the snap. This daemon is enabled automatically when the snap is installed and needs permissions provided by a few snap interfaces:
sudo snap connect intel-npu-driver:intel-npu-fw
sudo snap connect intel-npu-driver:intel-npu-kmod
Ultimately we aim to automate these steps via snapd's autoconnection mechanism.
To check that the search path was updated run:
sudo cat /sys/module/firmware_class/parameters/path
The expected output is something like:
/var/snap/intel-npu-driver/x1
Verify the intel_vpu kernel module is running and loaded the current firmware:
sudo dmesg | grep intel_vpu
Typical output:
[ 4.706576] intel_vpu 0000:00:0b.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[ 4.714294] intel_vpu 0000:00:0b.0: [drm] Firmware: intel/vpu/vpu_37xx_v0.0.bin, version: 20230726*MTL_CLIENT_SILICON-release*2101*ci_tag_mtl_pv_vpu_rc_20230726_2101*648a666b8b9
[ 4.796516] [drm] Initialized intel_vpu 1.0.0 20230117 for 0000:00:0b.0 on minor 0
[ 11.084478] intel_vpu 0000:00:0b.0: [drm] Firmware: intel/vpu/vpu_37xx_v0.0.bin, version: 20240726*MTL_CLIENT_SILICON-release*0004*ci_tag_ud202428_vpu_rc_20240726_0004*e4a99ed6b3e
[ 11.211998] [drm] Initialized intel_vpu 1.0.0 20230117 for 0000:00:0b.0 on minor 0
Note in this output that the system initially boots with the firmware that ships with OS before reloading more recent firmware provided by the snap. Check the upstream repo from Intel for the expected firmware version for your platform.
First connect to the custom-device interface, which allows access to the NPU device node on the host:
sudo snap connect intel-npu-driver:intel-npu-plug intel-npu-driver:intel-npu
If you have not done so already, ensure the following are performed in order to set up non-root access to the NPU device:
sudo usermod -a -G render $USER # log out and log back in
If this is your first run, or if you re-loaded the intel_vpu driver, then you'll also need to perform the following:
sudo chown root:render /dev/accel/accel0
sudo chmod g+rw /dev/accel/accel0
Create input for tests. Here we store input in a special directory that is accessible both inside and outside the snap. This directory is created the first time you run the application. This is not a strict requirement for consuming snaps, for example a consuming snap may allow access to a user's home directory through the home interface.
intel-npu-driver.vpu-umd-test --help
Now move into the special directory and create the input:
cd $HOME/snap/intel-npu-driver/current
mkdir -p models/add_abc
curl -o models/add_abc/add_abc.xml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openvinotoolkit/openvino/master/src/core/tests/models/ir/add_abc.xml
touch models/add_abc/add_abc.bin
curl -o basic.yaml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/intel/linux-npu-driver/v1.6.0/validation/umd-test/configs/basic.yaml
Finally run the application:
intel-npu-driver.vpu-umd-test --config=basic.yaml