how to pull model automatically with container creation?

Question

When trying to access the ollama container from another (node) service in my docker compose setup, I get the following error:

ResponseError: model 'llama3' not found, try pulling it first

I want the setup for the containers to be automatic and don't want to manually connect to the containers and manually pull the models. Is there a way to load the model of my choice automatically when I create the ollama docker container?

Here is my relevant part of the docker-compose.yml

ollama:
        image: ollama/ollama:latest
        ports:
            - 11434:11434
        volumes:
            - ./ollama/ollama:/root/.ollama
        container_name: ollama
        pull_policy: always
        tty: true
        restart: always

Answer 1

Use a custom entrypoint script to download the model when a container is launched. The model will be persisted in the volume mount, so this will go quickly with subsequent starts.

version: '3.7'

services:
  ollama:
    image: ollama/ollama:latest
    ports:
        - 11434:11434
    volumes:
        - ./ollama/ollama:/root/.ollama
        - ./entrypoint.sh:/entrypoint.sh
    container_name: ollama
    pull_policy: always
    tty: true
    restart: always
    entrypoint: ["/usr/bin/bash", "/entrypoint.sh"]

Key changes:

1. Added an entrypoint.
2. Added a volume mount for entrypoint.sh.

This is the content of entrypoint.sh:

#!/bin/bash

# Start Ollama in the background.
/bin/ollama serve &
# Record Process ID.
pid=$!

# Pause for Ollama to start.
sleep 5

echo "🔴 Retrieve LLAMA3 model..."
ollama pull llama3
echo "🟢 Done!"

# Wait for Ollama process to finish.
wait $pid