Helm Chart Values Reference

The NVIDIA GPU Operator is installed and configured with a Helm chart. This page is a reference for the most frequently used chart values, grouped by component.

You can set values on the command line with --set <key>=<value> when you install or upgrade the chart, or provide a values file with -f values.yaml. To view the complete set of values for a specific chart version, run:

$ helm show values nvidia/gpu-operator --version=v26.7.0

Note

Many chart values populate fields of the ClusterPolicy or GPUCluster custom resources that the chart creates. For the complete custom resource schemas, refer to the ClusterPolicy Custom Resource Reference and the GPUCluster Custom Resource Reference.

Operator and Global Settings

Parameter	Description	Default
operator.labels	Map of custom labels to add to all GPU Operator managed pods.	{}
operator.env	List of environment variables (name/value pairs) set on the GPU Operator. For a GPUCluster deployment, set DEFAULT_GPU_ALLOCATION_MODE to dra so newly-added GPU nodes use the DRA model. Refer to Deployment Model.	[]
daemonsets.labels	Map of custom labels to add to all GPU Operator managed DaemonSet pods.	{}
daemonsets.annotations	Map of custom annotations to add to all GPU Operator managed DaemonSet pods.	{}
psa.enabled	When set to true, the Operator configures Pod Security Admission labels on its namespace.	false
psp.enabled (Deprecated)	Deploys PodSecurityPolicies when enabled. PodSecurityPolicy is no longer supported in current Kubernetes releases.	false

NVIDIA GPU Driver

These values configure the driver section of ClusterPolicy. For per-node driver configuration through the NVIDIADriver custom resource, refer to GPU Driver CRD.

Parameter	Description	Default
driver.enabled	By default, the Operator deploys NVIDIA drivers as a container on the system. Set this value to false when using the Operator on systems with pre-installed drivers.	true
driver.nvidiaDriverCRD.enabled	When set to true, the Operator deploys and uses the NVIDIA GPU Driver custom resource definition. Refer to the NVIDIA GPU Driver Custom Resource Definition page for more information.	false
driver.repository	Image repository for the driver container. Specify another image repository when using custom driver images.	nvcr.io/nvidia
driver.image	Name of the NVIDIA driver container image to use.	driver
driver.version	Version of the NVIDIA datacenter driver supported by the Operator. If you set driver.usePrecompiled to true, set this field to a driver branch, such as 535.	Depends on the Operator version. Refer to the GPU Operator Component Matrix.
driver.imagePullSecrets	List of image pull secrets used for pulling the driver container image from the registry.	None
driver.kernelModuleType	Type of NVIDIA GPU kernel modules to use. Valid values are auto (default), proprietary, and open. auto selects the recommended module type based on the GPU devices and driver branch.	auto
driver.rdma.enabled	Controls whether the driver DaemonSet builds and loads the legacy nvidia-peermem kernel module. Refer to GPUDirect RDMA and GPUDirect Storage for guidance on whether you need it.	false
driver.rdma.useHostMofed	Indicates that MLNX_OFED (MOFED) drivers are pre-installed on the host.	false
driver.secretEnv	Name of a secret passed to the driver container. A common use is passing an Ubuntu Pro token secret for government-ready components. Refer to NVIDIA GPU Operator Government Ready.	None
driver.startupProbe	Startup probe configuration for the driver container. By default the probe runs nvidia-smi with a 60s timeout after an initial delay. Increase timeoutSeconds if nvidia-smi runs slowly in your cluster.	60s
driver.usePrecompiled	When set to true, the Operator attempts to deploy driver containers with precompiled kernel drivers. Refer to the precompiled driver containers page for supported operating systems.	false
driver.useOpenKernelModules (Deprecated)	Deprecated as of v25.3.0 and ignored. Use driver.kernelModuleType instead.	false

NVIDIA Container Toolkit

Parameter	Description	Default
toolkit.enabled	By default, the Operator deploys the NVIDIA Container Toolkit as a container on the system. Set this value to false when using the Operator on systems with pre-installed NVIDIA runtimes.	true

Device Plugin

Parameter	Description	Default
devicePlugin.config	Specifies the configuration for the NVIDIA Device Plugin as a config map. In most cases this is configured after installing the Operator, for example to configure Time-Slicing GPUs in Kubernetes.	{}

CDI and NRI

Parameter	Description	Default
cdi.enabled	When set to true (default), the Container Device Interface (CDI) is used for injecting GPUs into workload containers, and the Operator no longer configures the nvidia runtime class as the default runtime handler. Refer to the Container Device Interface (CDI) and Node Resource Interface (NRI) Plugin Support page for more information.	true
cdi.nriPluginEnabled	When set to true, the Node Resource Interface (NRI) Plugin is used for injecting GPUs into workload containers, and the NVIDIA Container Toolkit no longer modifies the runtime configuration. Requires containerd v1.7.30, v2.1.x, or v2.2.x, or CRI-O v1.34 or later. Refer to the Container Device Interface (CDI) and Node Resource Interface (NRI) Plugin Support page.	false
cdi.default (Deprecated)	Deprecated as of v25.10.0 and ignored. cdi.enabled defaults to true in v25.10.0 and later.	false

DCGM and DCGM Exporter

Parameter	Description	Default
dcgm.enabled	When set to true, the Operator deploys a standalone NVIDIA DCGM hostengine. When false, DCGM Exporter uses its embedded nv-hostengine.	false
dcgmExporter.enabled	By default, the Operator gathers GPU telemetry using DCGM Exporter. Set this value to false to disable it.	true
dcgmExporter.service.internalTrafficPolicy	Specifies the internalTrafficPolicy for the DCGM Exporter service. Available values are Cluster (default) or Local.	Cluster
dcgmExporter.hostNetwork	When set to true, DCGM Exporter exposes a metric port on the host’s network namespace.	false
dcgmExporter.annotations	Map of custom annotations to add to the DCGM Exporter DaemonSet.	{}
dcgmExporter.enablePodLabels	When set to true, Kubernetes pod labels are added as Prometheus label dimensions on GPU metrics. This provisions a cluster-scoped ClusterRole and ClusterRoleBinding (nvidia-dcgm-exporter-read-pods) that grants the DCGM Exporter service account get, list, and watch access to pods. Use dcgmExporter.podLabelAllowlistRegex to limit which labels are emitted.	false
dcgmExporter.enablePodUID	When set to true, the Kubernetes pod UID is added as a Prometheus label dimension on GPU metrics. Like dcgmExporter.enablePodLabels, this provisions a cluster-scoped ClusterRole and ClusterRoleBinding.	false
dcgmExporter.podLabelAllowlistRegex	List of regular expressions that filter which pod labels are emitted as Prometheus dimensions when dcgmExporter.enablePodLabels is true. NVIDIA recommends configuring this allowlist in clusters with many pod labels to reduce Prometheus cardinality.	None

MIG (Multi-Instance GPU)

Parameter	Description	Default
mig.strategy	Controls the strategy used with MIG on supported NVIDIA GPUs. Options are single or mixed.	single
migManager.enabled	The MIG Manager watches for changes to the MIG geometry and applies reconfiguration as needed. By default it only runs on nodes with GPUs that support MIG.	true

Node Feature Discovery

Parameter	Description	Default
nfd.enabled	Deploys the Node Feature Discovery (NFD) plugin as a DaemonSet. Set this value to false if NFD is already running in the cluster.	true
nfd.nodefeaturerules	Installs node feature rules related to confidential computing. NFD uses the rules to detect security features in CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs. Set this value to true when configuring the Operator for Confidential Containers.	false

DRA Support (GPUCluster)

These values enable and configure the DRA GPU resource management model. The gpuCluster.* values populate the GPUCluster custom resource; for the full field list, refer to the GPUCluster Custom Resource Reference and Deploying the GPU Operator with DRA Support.

Parameter	Description	Default
gpuCluster.enabled	When set to true, the Operator creates the default GPUCluster resource and enables the DRA model.	false
gpuCluster.draDriver.*	Configures the DRA driver image and its GPU allocation (gpus) and ComputeDomains capabilities. Populates spec.draDriver of the GPUCluster resource.	See reference
operator.env[*] (DEFAULT_GPU_ALLOCATION_MODE)	Set to dra for a GPUCluster deployment so newly-added GPU nodes use the DRA model.	unset

Sandbox Workloads

These values apply when running virtual machine workloads (KubeVirt) or Kata Containers.

Parameter	Description	Default
sandboxWorkloads.enabled	Specifies whether sandbox workloads are enabled.	false
sandboxWorkloads.defaultWorkload	Default workload type for the cluster: container, vm-passthrough, or vm-vgpu. Refer to KubeVirt and Kata Containers.	container
sandboxWorkloads.mode	Sandbox mode used when deploying sandbox workloads. Accepted values are kubevirt (default) and kata.	kubevirt

Other Components

Parameter	Description	Default
ccManager.enabled	When set to true, the Operator deploys the NVIDIA Confidential Computing Manager for Kubernetes.	false
gdrcopy.enabled	Enables support for GDRCopy. When set to true, the GDRCopy driver runs as a sidecar container in the GPU driver pod. For information about GDRCopy, refer to the gdrcopy page.	false