AMD SMI Python interface overview

AMD SMI Python interface overview#

The AMD SMI Python interface provides a convenient way to interact with AMD hardware through a simple and accessible API. Compatible with Python 3.6 and higher, this library requires the AMD driver to be loaded for initialization – review the prerequisites.

Get started#

To get started, the amdsmi folder should be copied and placed next to the importing script. Import it as follows:

from amdsmi import *

try:
    amdsmi_init()

    # amdsmi calls ...

except AmdSmiException as e:
    print(e)
finally:
    try:
        amdsmi_shut_down()
    except AmdSmiException as e:
        print(e)

Folder structure#

File name

Description

__init__.py

Python package initialization file

amdsmi_interface.py

Amdsmi library Python interface

amdsmi_wrapper.py

Python wrapper around amdsmi binary

amdsmi_exception.py

Amdsmi exceptions Python file

Usage#

Note

hipcc and other compilers will not automatically link in the libamd_smi dynamic library. To compile code that uses the AMD SMI library API, ensure the libamd_smi.so can be located by setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable to the directory containing librocm_smi64.so (usually /opt/rocm/lib) or by passing the -lamd_smi flag to the compiler.

See also

Refer to the Python library API reference.

An application using AMD SMI must call amdsmi_init() to initialize the AMI SMI library before all other calls. This call initializes the internal data structures required for subsequent AMD SMI operations. In the call, a flag can be passed to indicate if the application is interested in a specific device type.

amdsmi_shut_down() must be the last call to properly close connection to driver and make sure that any resources held by AMD SMI are released.

Exceptions#

All exceptions are in amdsmi_exception.py file.

Exceptions that can be thrown by AMD SMI are:

  • AmdSmiException: base amdsmi exception class

  • AmdSmiLibraryException: derives base AmdSmiException class and represents errors that can occur in amdsmi-lib. When this exception is thrown, err_code and err_info are set. err_code is an integer that corresponds to errors that can occur in amdsmi-lib and err_info is a string that explains the error that occurred.

    For example:

    try:
    num_of_GPUs = len(amdsmi_get_processor_handles())
    if num_of_GPUs == 0:
        print("No GPUs on machine")
except AmdSmiException as e:
    print("Error code: {}".format(e.err_code))
    if e.err_code == amdsmi_wrapper.AMDSMI_STATUS_RETRY:
        print("Error info: {}".format(e.err_info))

  • AmdSmiRetryException : Derives AmdSmiLibraryException class and signals device is busy and call should be retried.

  • AmdSmiTimeoutException : Derives AmdSmiLibraryException class and represents that call had timed out.

  • AmdSmiParameterException: Derives base AmdSmiException class and represents errors related to invaild parameters passed to functions. When this exception is thrown, err_msg is set and it explains what is the actual and expected type of the parameters.

  • AmdSmiBdfFormatException: Derives base AmdSmiException class and represents invalid bdf format.