Building from source {#ovmsdocsbuildfromsource}

February 25, 2026 · View on GitHub

This document gives information how to build docker images and the binary package from source with different variants.

Prerequisites

Docker Engine
Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 24.04 or RedHat 9.6 host
make
bash

Note: Building Windows Model Server is covered in Developer Guide for Windows.

Makefile located in root directory of this repository contains all targets needed to build docker images and binary packages. One of these targets is release_image which by default builds openvino/model_server:latest image.

git clone https://github.com/openvinotoolkit/model_server
cd model_server
make release_image

To build the image with non default configuration, add parameters described below.

Building Options

`BASE_OS`

Select base OS:

ubuntu22 for Ubuntu 22.04 (default)
ubuntu24 for Ubuntu 24.04
redhat for Red Hat UBI 9.6

make release_image BASE_OS=redhat

Example:

`INSTALL_DRIVER_VERSION`

Parameter used to control which GPU driver version will be installed. Supported versions:

OS	Versions
Ubuntu22	24.39.31294 (default), 24.26.30049 (default), 23.22.26516
Ubuntu24	24.52.32224 (default), 24.39.31294
RedHat	23.22.26516 (default), 24.26.30049, 23.22.26516, 22.10.22597

Additionally it is possible to specify custom (pre-production) drivers by providing location to NEO Runtime packages on local disk. Contact Intel representative to get the access to the pre-production drivers. Warning: Maintained only for Ubuntu base OS.

Put NEO Runtime deb packages in the catalog <model_server_dir>/release_files/drivers/dg2. Expected structure is like below:

drivers
└── dg2
     ├── intel-igc-core_<version>_amd64.deb
     ├── intel-igc-opencl_<version>_amd64.deb
     ├── intel-level-zero-gpu-dbgsym_<version>_amd64.deb
     ├── intel-level-zero-gpu_<version>_amd64.deb
     ├── intel-opencl-icd-dbgsym_<version>_amd64.deb
     ├── intel-opencl-icd_<version>_amd64.deb
     ├── libigdgmm12_<version>_amd64.deb
     └── libigdgmm12_<version>_amd64.deb

and run make release_image with parameter: INSTALL_DRIVER_VERSION=dg2.

Example:

make release_image BASE_OS=ubuntu INSTALL_DRIVER_VERSION=dg2

`DLDT_PACKAGE_URL`

Parameter used to specify URL to the OpenVINO tar.gz archive, appropriate for the target OS. Here are the latest public packages from master branch. Use this parameter together with OV_USE_BINARY=1.

`OV_USE_BINARY`

By default set to 0. With that setting, OpenVINO backend will be built from sources and DLDT_PACKAGE_URL will be omitted. Use OV_SOURCE_BRANCH and OV_SOURCE_ORG to select OpenVINO repository branch and fork. By default the latest tested commit from master branch will be used and org openvinotoolkit. When OV_USE_BINARY=1, the OpenVINO backend will be installed from the binary archive set in DLDT_PACKAGE_URL.

Example:

make release_image OV_USE_BINARY=0 OV_SOURCE_BRANCH=<commit or branch> OV_SOURCE_ORG=<fork org>

Running the unit tests will increase build time and consume more RAM

`JOBS`

Number of compilation jobs. By default it is set to the number of CPU cores. On hosts with low RAM, this value can be reduced to avoid out of memory errors during the compilation.

make release_image JOBS=2

`PYTHON_DISABLE`

When set to 0, OpenVINO&trade Model Server will be built with Python Nodes support. Default value: 0.

Example:

make release_image PYTHON_DISABLE=1

`MEDIAPIPE_DISABLE`

When set to 0, OpenVINO&trade Model Server will be built with MediaPipe support. Default value: 0.

Example:

make release_image MEDIAPIPE_DISABLE=1 PYTHON_DISABLE=1

Note: In order to build the image with python nodes support (PYTHON_DISABLE=0) mediapipe have to be enabled (MEDIAPIPE_DISABLE=0)

`GPU`

When set to 1, OpenVINO&trade Model Server will be built with the drivers required by GPU plugin support. Default value: 0.

Example:

make release_image GPU=1

Building minimal image

Building minimalistic OVMS docker image requires disabling all optional features:

make release_image GPU=0 MEDIAPIPE_DISABLE=1 PYTHON_DISABLE=1

Building Binary Package

The binary packages includes the ovms executable and linked libraries for bare metal deployments. It includes also a shared library for the model server CAPI interface. Building ovms.tar.gz package is possible by using targz_package target:

make targz_package PYTHON_DISABLE=1
tree dist/ubuntu22

dist/ubuntu22
├── ovms.tar.gz
└── ovms.tar.gz.sha256

Read more details about building and testing changes in developer guide.