Verify Prerequisites

Step 1: Verify Initial GPU State¶

Before beginning, confirm the GPU is detected and identify its PCI addresses. We can do this by listing our NVIDIA devices, and checking our driver status.

Verify Initial GPU State

List all NVIDIA devices:

lspci | grep -i nvidia

Check driver status:

nvidia-smi

Expected output for RTX 2080:

08:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation TU104 [GeForce RTX 2080] (rev a1)
08:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation TU104 HD Audio Controller (rev a1)
08:00.2 USB controller: NVIDIA Corporation TU104 USB 3.1 Host Controller (rev a1)
08:00.3 Serial bus controller: NVIDIA Corporation TU104 USB Type-C UCSI Controller (rev a1)

Important

Record these PCI addresses — you'll use them throughout this guide. Replace 08:00.x with your actual addresses in all subsequent commands.

Step 2: Verify IOMMU Is Enabled¶

IOMMU (Input-Output Memory Management Unit) must be enabled for device passthrough to function. We will need to check our current kernel via the command line, and ensure the necessary flags are present.

Verify IOMMU Is Enabled

Check current kernel command line:

cat /proc/cmdline

Look for one of these flags: - intel_iommu=on — Intel CPUs - amd_iommu=on — AMD CPUs

If neither flag is present:

Edit GRUB configuration:
```
sudo nano /etc/default/grub
```

Add the appropriate flag to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash intel_iommu=on"

Update GRUB and reboot:
```
sudo update-grub
sudo reboot
```