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You can install SGLang using any of the methods below. Please go through System Settings section to ensure the clusters are roaring at max performance. Feel free to leave an issue here at sglang if you encounter any issues or have any problems.

Component Version Mapping For SGLang

ComponentVersionObtain Way
HDK25.5.2link
CANN8.5.0Obtain Images
Pytorch Adapter7.3.0link
MemFabric1.0.5pip install memfabric-hybrid==1.0.5
Triton3.2.0pip install triton-ascend
SGLang NPU KernelNAlink

Obtain CANN Image

Ensure sufficient disk space before pulling images. Each Docker image requires at least 30 GB of free space.
You can obtain the dependency of a specified version of CANN through an image.
Command
docker pull quay.io/ascend/cann:8.5.0-a3-ubuntu22.04-py3.11

Preparing the Running Environment

Method 1: Installing from source with prerequisites

Python Version

Only python==3.11 is supported currently. If you don’t want to break system pre-installed python, try installing with conda.
Command
conda create --name sglang_npu python=3.11
conda activate sglang_npu
Note on Anaconda repository restrictions If you encounter an error like “Terms of Service have not been accepted” during the conda create step, the default Anaconda repository is blocking package downloads. To resolve this, configure a mirror (e.g., Tsinghua Open Source Mirror):
Command
# Add Tsinghua mirrors
conda config --add channels https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/anaconda/pkgs/main/
conda config --add channels https://mirrors.tuna.tsinghua.edu.cn/anaconda/cloud/conda-forge/
conda config --set show_channel_urls yes

# Edit the system-level conda config to remove any hardcoded defaults
vi /root/miniconda3/.condarc
Inside /root/miniconda3/.condarc, delete or comment out any lines containing defaults or official Anaconda URLs. Then remove the failed environment and recreate it:
Command
conda clean -i
conda env remove -n sglang_npu
conda create --name sglang_npu python=3.11
conda activate sglang_npu

CANN

Prior to start work with SGLang on Ascend you need to install CANN Toolkit, Kernels operator package and NNAL version 8.5.0, check the installation guide

MemFabric-Hybrid

If you want to use PD disaggregation mode, you need to install MemFabric-Hybrid. MemFabric-Hybrid is a drop-in replacement of Mooncake Transfer Engine that enables KV cache transfer on Ascend NPU clusters.
Command
pip install memfabric-hybrid==1.0.5

Pytorch and Pytorch Framework Adaptor on Ascend

Command
PYTORCH_VERSION=2.8.0
TORCHVISION_VERSION=0.23.0
TORCH_NPU_VERSION=2.8.0.post2
pip install torch==$PYTORCH_VERSION torchvision==$TORCHVISION_VERSION --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cpu
pip install torch_npu==$TORCH_NPU_VERSION
If you are using other versions of torch and install torch_npu, check installation guide

Triton on Ascend

We provide our own implementation of Triton for Ascend.
Command
pip install triton-ascend
For installation of Triton on Ascend nightly builds or from sources, follow installation guide

SGLang Kernels NPU

We provide SGL kernels for Ascend NPU, check installation guide.

DeepEP-compatible Library

We provide a DeepEP-compatible Library as a drop-in replacement of deepseek-ai’s DeepEP library, check the installation guide.

Some other dependencies

Command
# libGL
apt update
apt install libgl1 libglib2.0-0

# ensure setuptools contains pkg_resources module
pip install "setuptools<80"

Installing SGLang from source

Command
# Use the last release branch
git clone https://github.com/sgl-project/sglang.git
cd sglang
mv python/pyproject_npu.toml python/pyproject.toml
pip install -e python[all_npu]

Method 2: Using Docker Image

Obtain Image

You can download the SGLang image or build an image based on Dockerfile to obtain the Ascend NPU image.
Ensure sufficient disk space before pulling images. Each Docker image requires at least 30 GB of free space. If you need to download model weights, check the model size at ModelScope to reserve enough space.
  1. Download SGLang image
We publish both stable releases and daily builds. Choose a stable release tag (e.g., v0.5.10-npu.rc1-a3) if you prefer a validated version, or a daily build tag (e.g., main-cann8.5.0-a3) if you need the latest development changes.
Command
# Stable release
docker pull quay.io/ascend/sglang:v0.5.10-npu.rc1-a3

# Daily build
docker pull quay.io/ascend/sglang:main-cann8.5.0-a3
  1. Build an image based on Dockerfile
Command
# Clone the SGLang repository
git clone https://github.com/sgl-project/sglang.git
cd sglang/docker

# Build the docker image
# If there are network errors, please modify the Dockerfile to use offline dependencies or use a proxy
# <arch_tag> is the target architecture of the image, e.g. amd64, arm64
docker build --build-arg TARGETARCH=<arch_tag> -t <image_name> -f npu.Dockerfile .

Create Docker

Notice: --privileged and --network=host are required by RDMA, which is typically needed by Ascend NPU clusters.
Command
alias drun='docker run -it --rm --privileged --network=host --ipc=host --shm-size=16g \
    --device=/dev/davinci0 --device=/dev/davinci1 --device=/dev/davinci2 --device=/dev/davinci3 \
    --device=/dev/davinci4 --device=/dev/davinci5 --device=/dev/davinci6 --device=/dev/davinci7 \
    --device=/dev/davinci8 --device=/dev/davinci9 --device=/dev/davinci10 --device=/dev/davinci11 \
    --device=/dev/davinci12 --device=/dev/davinci13 --device=/dev/davinci14 --device=/dev/davinci15 \
    --device=/dev/davinci_manager --device=/dev/hisi_hdc \
    --volume /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/sbin --volume /usr/local/Ascend/driver:/usr/local/Ascend/driver \
    --volume /usr/local/Ascend/firmware:/usr/local/Ascend/firmware \
    --volume /etc/ascend_install.info:/etc/ascend_install.info \
    --volume /var/queue_schedule:/var/queue_schedule --volume ~/.cache/:/root/.cache/'

# Add HF_TOKEN env for download model by SGLang.
drun --env "HF_TOKEN=<secret>" \
    <image_name> \
    python3 -m sglang.launch_server --model-path meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct --attention-backend ascend
SGLang will serve on http://127.0.0.1:30000 by default. You can change the host and port by --host and --port parameters.

System Settings

CPU performance power scheme

The default power scheme on Ascend hardware is ondemand which could affect performance, changing it to performance is recommended.
Command
echo performance | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor

# Make sure changes are applied successfully
cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor # shows performance

Disable NUMA balancing

Command
sudo sysctl -w kernel.numa_balancing=0
# Check
cat /proc/sys/kernel/numa_balancing # shows 0

Prevent swapping out system memory

Command
sudo sysctl -w vm.swappiness=10

# Check
cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness # shows 10

Running SGLang Service

Running Service For Large Language Models

PD Mixed Scene

Command
# Enabling CPU Affinity
export SGLANG_SET_CPU_AFFINITY=1
python3 -m sglang.launch_server \
  --model-path meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct \
  --attention-backend ascend \
  --host 127.0.0.1 \
  --port 8000

PD Disaggregation Scene

  1. Launch Prefill Server
Command
# Enabling CPU Affinity
export SGLANG_SET_CPU_AFFINITY=1

# PREFILL_IP: IP address of the first Prefill Server
# FREE_PORT: any available port
# all SGLang servers need to be configured with the same PREFILL_IP and FREE_PORT
export ASCEND_MF_STORE_URL="tcp://PREFILL_IP:FREE_PORT"
python3 -m sglang.launch_server \
    --model-path meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct \
    --disaggregation-mode prefill \
    --disaggregation-transfer-backend ascend \
    --disaggregation-bootstrap-port 8995 \
    --attention-backend ascend \
    --device npu \
    --base-gpu-id 0 \
    --tp-size 1 \
    --host 127.0.0.1 \
    --port 8000
  1. Launch Decode Server
Command
# PREFILL_IP: IP address of the first Prefill Server
# FREE_PORT: any available port
# all SGLang servers need to be configured with the same PREFILL_IP and FREE_PORT
export ASCEND_MF_STORE_URL="tcp://PREFILL_IP:FREE_PORT"
python3 -m sglang.launch_server \
    --model-path meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct \
    --disaggregation-mode decode \
    --disaggregation-transfer-backend ascend \
    --attention-backend ascend \
    --device npu \
    --base-gpu-id 1 \
    --tp-size 1 \
    --host 127.0.0.1 \
    --port 8001
  1. Launch Router
Command
python3 -m sglang_router.launch_router \
    --pd-disaggregation \
    --policy cache_aware \
    --prefill http://127.0.0.1:8000 8995 \
    --decode http://127.0.0.1:8001 \
    --host 127.0.0.1 \
    --port 6688

Running Service For Multimodal Language Models

PD Mixed Scene

Command
python3 -m sglang.launch_server \
    --model-path Qwen3-VL-30B-A3B-Instruct \
    --host 127.0.0.1 \
    --port 8000 \
    --tp 4 \
    --device npu \
    --attention-backend ascend \
    --mm-attention-backend ascend_attn \
    --disable-radix-cache \
    --trust-remote-code \
    --enable-multimodal \
    --sampling-backend ascend

Testing the Service

Once the server prints The server is fired up and ready to roll! in the logs, it is ready to accept requests.

Which port to send requests to

The port you use depends on your deployment mode:
ScenarioWhere to send requests
Non-PD (single server)The server’s --port (e.g., 8000 in the examples above)
Non-PD (multi-node)The primary node’s (--node-rank 0) --port; do not send requests to worker nodes
PD disaggregationThe router’s --port (e.g., 6688 in the examples above); do not send requests directly to prefill or decode servers
SGLang serves on port 30000 by default if --port is not specified. The examples in this guide use explicit ports for clarity.If you are using PD disaggregation, replace 8000 with your router’s port (e.g., 6688) in the following examples.

Health Check

Command
curl http://127.0.0.1:8000/health
A successful response returns HTTP 200 with an empty body.

Generate (Native Endpoint)

Command
curl http://127.0.0.1:8000/generate \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "text": "What is the capital of France?",
    "sampling_params": {"temperature": 0, "max_new_tokens": 128}
  }'
The expected output should contain “Paris”.

Chat Completions (OpenAI-Compatible)

Command
curl http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "What is the capital of France?"}]
  }'
Some models return responses accompanied with thinking process content. To disable this output, configure parameters as follows:
Command
curl http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1/chat/completions
  -H "Content-Type: application/json"
  -d '{
    "model": "Eco-Tech/Qwen3.5-27B-w8a8-mtp",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "What is the capital of France?"}],
    "chat_template_kwargs": {"enable_thinking": false}
  }'
The expected output should contain “Paris”.

Multimodal Chat Completions

The image URL in the example below references an external resource (raw.githubusercontent.com). Make sure the server has internet access so the image can be downloaded at inference time. Alternatively, you can use a locally accessible URL or base64-encoded image data.
Command
curl http://127.0.0.1:8000/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "model": "Qwen3-VL-30B-A3B-Instruct",
    "messages": [{
      "role": "user",
      "content": [
        {"type": "image_url", "image_url": {"url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sgl-project/sglang/main/examples/assets/example_image.png"}},
        {"type": "text", "text": "Describe this image."}
      ]
    }]
  }'