Downloading the official Nvidia driver for AWS EC2 instances can be tricky. Here are my notes on the process of using the AWS CLI to download the driver directly to the EC2 instance you want to install it on.

This guide uses the AWS CLI to create the policy. AWS Cloud Shell provides an easy way to use the CLI.

Here are links to official docs from AWS for installing the Nvidia drivers for Windows and Linux for reference.

Creating IAM policy and Role⌗

The AWS specific Nvidia driver lives in an S3 bucket. We need to give the EC2 instance access to that bucket to download the driver by assigning it an IAM role.

Create IAM Access Policy⌗

First we need a policy that lets the EC2 instance read the S3 bucket the Nvidia driver is stored in.

Create a file with the Nvidia driver S3 bucket read policy.

cat <<EOF> nvidia-s3-allow-read.json 
{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "NvidiaS3AllowRead",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "s3:Get*",
                "s3:List*",
                "s3:Describe*"
            ],
            "Resource": [
                "arn:aws:s3:::ec2-windows-nvidia-drivers*",
                "arn:aws:s3:::ec2-linux-nvidia-drivers*",
                "arn:aws:s3:::nvidia-gaming*"
            ]
        }
    ]
}
EOF

Create the IAM policy and add the policy file to it

aws iam create-policy \
  --policy-name nvidia-s3-allow-read \
  --policy-document file://nvidia-s3-allow-read.json
  --description.json "Allows reading from AWS Nvidia driver s3 bucket"

IMPORTANT: Make sure to take note of the “Arn” that is printed out after the policy has been created, we will need this later.

Create IAM Role⌗

Now we have a policy that gives access to the S3 bucket with the Nvidia driver we need a way to apply it to our EC2 instance.

First create a policy file to tell the roll it can only be attached to EC2.

cat <<EOF > ec2-assume-role-policy.json
{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": {
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Principal": {"Service": "ec2.amazonaws.com"},
    "Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
  }
}
EOF

Create an IAM role to give the EC2 instance we want to download the driver on to.

aws iam create-role \
  --role-name nvidia-s3-allow-ec2-read \
  --assume-role-policy-document file://ec2-assume-role-policy.json

Attach the policy we created just before that gives read access to the Nvidia driver bucket.

In the --policy-arn section add the “Arn” you noted down earlier in when creating the policy.

aws iam attach-role-policy \
  --role-name nvidia-s3-allow-ec2-read \
  --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::<account ID>:policy/nvidia-s3-allow-read

Create instance profile that will attach the new role to the EC2 instance.

aws iam create-instance-profile \
  --instance-profile-name nvidia-s3-allow-ec2-read-instance-profile
aws iam add-role-to-instance-profile \
  --role-name nvidia-s3-allow-ec2-read \
  --instance-profile-name nvidia-s3-allow-ec2-read-instance-profile

Attatch IAM role to EC2 instance⌗

Attach the newly created IAM role to the EC2 instance. This can be done either through the console or via the CLI.

Here is the CLI method. You will need the instance ID of the EC2 instance you want to assign the role to.

aws ec2 associate-iam-instance-profile \
  --instance-id <EC2 instance InstanceId> \
  --iam-instance-profile Name="nvidia-s3-allow-ec2-read-instance-profile"

Note: EC2 instances can only have 1 IAM role at a time, if your instance already has an IAM role you will need to remove it before applying a new one.

Downloading the Nvidia Driver with AWS CLI⌗

Remote into the EC2 instance with SSH

Install AWS CLI

Ubuntu 22.04

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y awscli

Other Linux or newer Ubuntu

Install unzip

sudo apt install pkg-config libglvnd-dev -y

Download and install the AWS CLI

curl "https://awscli.amazonaws.com/awscli-exe-linux-x86_64.zip" -o "awscliv2.zip"
unzip awscliv2.zip
sudo ./aws/install

Clean up install files

rm -rf aws awscliv2.zip

Check here for the official guide if the above instructions don’t work for your version of Linux

Downloading the driver

Download driver using the AWS CLI

aws s3 cp --recursive s3://ec2-linux-nvidia-drivers/latest/ .

With the Nvidia drivers downloaded all thats left to do is install them. To help get you started, here are some guides for setting up a 3D workstation on Ubuntu or Rocky 9.