Install and Setup

System requirements

DGL works with the following operating systems:

• Ubuntu 20.04+

• CentOS 8+

• RHEL 8+

• macOS X

• Windows 10

DGL requires Python version 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, 3.10, 3.11.

DGL supports multiple tensor libraries as backends, e.g., PyTorch, MXNet. For requirements on backends and how to select one, see Working with different backends.

Starting at version 0.3, DGL is separated into CPU and CUDA builds. The builds share the same Python package name. If you install DGL with a CUDA 9 build after you install the CPU build, then the CPU build is overwritten.

Install from Conda or Pip

We recommend installing DGL by conda or pip. Check out the instructions on the Get Started page.

Note

For Windows users: you will need to install Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable.

Install from source

Download the source files from GitHub.

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/dmlc/dgl.git

(Optional) Clone the repository first, and then run the following:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Linux

Install the system packages for building the shared library. For Debian and Ubuntu users, run:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y build-essential python3-dev make cmake

For Fedora/RHEL/CentOS users, run:

sudo yum install -y gcc-c++ python3-devel make cmake

To create a Conda environment for CPU development, run:

bash script/create_dev_conda_env.sh -c

To create a Conda environment for GPU development, run:

bash script/create_dev_conda_env.sh -g 11.7

To further configure the conda environment, run the following command for more details:

bash script/create_dev_conda_env.sh -h

To build the shared library for CPU development, run:

bash script/build_dgl.sh -c

To build the shared library for GPU development, run:

bash script/build_dgl.sh -g

To further build the shared library, run the following command for more details:

bash script/build_dgl.sh -h

Finally, install the Python binding.

cd python
python setup.py install
# Build Cython extension
python setup.py build_ext --inplace

macOS

Installation on macOS is similar to Linux. But macOS users need to install build tools like clang, GNU Make, and cmake first. These installation steps were tested on macOS X with clang 10.0.0, GNU Make 3.81, and cmake 3.13.1.

Tools like clang and GNU Make are packaged in Command Line Tools for macOS. To install, run the following:

xcode-select --install

To install other needed packages like cmake, we recommend first installing Homebrew, which is a popular package manager for macOS. To learn more, see the Homebrew website.

After you install Homebrew, install cmake.

brew install cmake

Go to root directory of the DGL repository, build a shared library, and install the Python binding for DGL.

mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DUSE_OPENMP=off -DUSE_LIBXSMM=OFF ..
make -j4
cd ../python
python setup.py install
# Build Cython extension
python setup.py build_ext --inplace

Windows

You can build DGL with MSBuild. With MS Build Tools and CMake on Windows installed, run the following in VS2019 x64 Native tools command prompt.

• CPU only build:

  MD build
  CD build
  cmake -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS="/DDGL_EXPORTS" -DCMAKE_CONFIGURATION_TYPES="Release" -DDMLC_FORCE_SHARED_CRT=ON .. -G "Visual Studio 16 2019"
  msbuild dgl.sln /m
  CD ..\python
  python setup.py install
  

• CUDA build:

  MD build
  CD build
  cmake -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS="/DDGL_EXPORTS" -DCMAKE_CONFIGURATION_TYPES="Release" -DDMLC_FORCE_SHARED_CRT=ON -DUSE_CUDA=ON .. -G "Visual Studio 16 2019"
  msbuild dgl.sln /m
  CD ..\python
  python setup.py install
  

Working with different backends

DGL supports PyTorch, MXNet and Tensorflow backends. DGL will choose the backend on the following options (high priority to low priority)

• Use the DGLBACKEND environment variable:

  • You can use DGLBACKEND=[BACKEND] python gcn.py ... to specify the backend

  • Or export DGLBACKEND=[BACKEND] to set the global environment variable

• Modify the config.json file under “~/.dgl”:

  • You can use python -m dgl.backend.set_default_backend [BACKEND] to set the default backend

Currently BACKEND can be chosen from mxnet, pytorch, tensorflow.

PyTorch backend

Export DGLBACKEND as pytorch to specify PyTorch backend. The required PyTorch version is 1.12.0 or later. See pytorch.org for installation instructions.

MXNet backend

Export DGLBACKEND as mxnet to specify MXNet backend. The required MXNet version is 1.6 or later. See mxnet.apache.org for installation instructions.

MXNet uses uint32 as the default data type for integer tensors, which only supports graph of size smaller than 2^32. To enable large graph training, build MXNet with USE_INT64_TENSOR_SIZE=1 flag. See this FAQ for more information.

MXNet 1.5 and later has an option to enable Numpy shape mode for NDArray objects, some DGL models need this mode to be enabled to run correctly. However, this mode may not compatible with pretrained model parameters with this mode disabled, e.g. pretrained models from GluonCV and GluonNLP. By setting DGL_MXNET_SET_NP_SHAPE, users can switch this mode on or off.

Tensorflow backend

Export DGLBACKEND as tensorflow to specify Tensorflow backend. The required Tensorflow version is 2.3.0 or later. See tensorflow.org for installation instructions. In addition, DGL will set TF_FORCE_GPU_ALLOW_GROWTH to true to prevent Tensorflow take over the whole GPU memory: