The RBLN NPU Operator automates the deployment and management of all Rebellions software components required for provisioning the RBLN NPU family Kubernetes and OpenShift clusters. A singleton RBLNClusterPolicy custom resource orchestrates every operand, ensuring that device plugins, metrics, and VFIO-based passthrough stacks stay aligned with the hardware available in each node pool.

• Lifecycle automation – Automatically manages the full NPU exposure flow, from detecting PCI 1eff:* functions and labeling nodes to deploying the appropriate device plugins per workload type.
• Dual workload types – Container mode publishes resources (for example rebellions.ai/ATOM) through the standard device plugin, while sandbox mode rebinds functions to vfio-pci and advertises VFIO-backed resources such as rebellions.ai/ATOM_CA25_PT.

RBLNClusterPolicy (Cluster-scoped CR)
└── Controller Manager (Singleton reconciliation loop)
    ├─ Node labeling (NFD dependency, workload labels)
    ├─ Device Plugin DaemonSet + ConfigMap
    ├─ Sandbox Device Plugin + VFIO Checker
    ├─ VFIO Manager DaemonSet
    ├─ Metrics Exporter DaemonSet
    └─ NPU Feature Discovery DaemonSet

1. Enable by keeping spec.workloadType (or the Helm value) set to container, which is the default.
2. Components:
   • Device Plugin publishes rebellions.ai/ATOM resources.
   • Metrics Exporter exposes Prometheus-ready telemetry.
   • NPU Feature Discovery labels nodes with RBLN hardware inventory.
   • Leaves native RBLN drivers bound for container passthrough workloads.

1. Enable via Helm values or set spec.workloadType: vm-passthrough
2. Components:
   • NPU Feature Discovery continues to label VFIO-ready nodes so sandbox DaemonSets pin only to hardware that matches the policy.
   • VFIO Manager rebinding script (vfio-manage.sh) detaches vendor devices and binds them to vfio-pci.
   • Sandbox Device Plugin advertises rebellions.ai/ATOM_*_PT resources.
   • VFIO Checker ensures nodes remain in a ready state for KubeVirt.
3. KubeVirt integration:
   • Enable HostDevices feature gate
   • Populate permittedHostDevices with vendor selector 1eff:XXXX
   • Reference rebellions.ai/ATOM_CA25_PT inside VirtualMachine.spec.template.spec.domain.devices.hostDevices

The RBLN NPU Operator Helm chart automatically discovers RBLN NPUs in your cluster, deploys the required device plugins, and monitors the health of each operand. Follow these steps to get up and running quickly.

1. Prerequisites

   • Kubernetes 1.19+ cluster with access to kubectl and helm
   • A dedicated namespace such as rbln-system is recommended
   • Worker nodes equipped with NPUs and Node Feature Discovery installed (set nfd.enabled=true if you want Helm to deploy it)

2. Install Helm (if needed)

   curl -fsSL -o get_helm.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/master/scripts/get-helm-3 \
     && chmod 700 get_helm.sh \
     && ./get_helm.sh

3. Add the Rebellions Helm repository

   helm repo add rebellions https://rebellions-sw.github.io/rbln-npu-operator
   helm repo update

4. Install the NPU Operator

   helm install --wait --generate-name \
        -n rbln-system --create-namespace \
        rebellions/rbln-npu-operator

After Helm reports a successful install, confirm that the RBLNClusterPolicy custom resource is present and reconciled:

kubectl get rblnclusterpolicies.rebellions.ai -n rbln-system
NAME                  AGE
rbln-cluster-policy   8m

Next, inspect the operator namespace to verify the health of the controller and operand pods:

kubectl get pods -n rbln-system
NAME                                             READY   STATUS    AGE
controller-manager-797798d7b8-rjzht              1/1     Running   8m
rbln-device-plugin-4qgxc                         1/1     Running   8m
rbln-metrics-exporter-jghbg                      1/1     Running   8m
rbln-npu-feature-discovery-zg47r                 1/1     Running   8m

• Helm chart & source: RBLN NPU Operator Helm chart
• Issues & feature requests: open a GitHub issue in this repository.
• Kubebuilder reference: kubebuilder.io
• For cluster-specific guidance, contact your Rebellions support representative.