Hardened Ollama GPU on Ubuntu 24.04

This is a repackaged open source software product wherein additional charges apply for a hardened, AWS-optimized image with verifiable provenance evidence and maintenance. Ollama 0.31 (GPU) runs on an Ubuntu 24.04 LTS base tuned for Amazon EC2, with a documented set of security settings applied on top and a complete provenance evidence pack including a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM).

Ollama 0.31 (GPU) Deployment:

1. Self-Contained GPU Inference: The qwen3:4b-instruct model, the NVIDIA driver stack and the Ollama runtime are baked into the image, so a launched instance serves inference without downloading a single byte at runtime.

2. Fast First Answer: A boot-time prewarm step reads the model into memory in parallel with startup, so the API answers its first request in about five minutes on first boot and within roughly twenty seconds after each subsequent stop and start.

3. Safe Network Shape: An nginx reverse proxy publishes the OpenAI-compatible API on port 8000 while the native Ollama listener stays bound to the loopback interface.

Comprehensive Evidence Pack:

Every AMI carries an 8-file provenance evidence pack under /opt/optimization-report/:

• Tuning_Parameters.txt: Every tuning change, shown against its base-image value, with the reasoning and how to reverse it.
• Security_Parameters.txt: All 31 security settings in the same format; the 10 already at the wanted value are marked unchanged rather than presented as improvements.
• package_changes.txt: Packages upgraded and installed versus the base image.
• sbom.spdx.json: Software Bill of Materials in SPDX format, generated from the dpkg database.
• cve_scan.txt / cve_scan_full.txt.gz: Vulnerability scan grouped by whether an upstream fix exists, so unfixable findings are not counted against the image.
• key_files.sha256: SHA-256 checksums of all 7 files this image changed, so the delivered state can be verified in one command.
• README.txt: Index of artifact contents and operational guidance.

Security & Attack Surface:

1. Kernel Network Hardening: 19 network-related kernel parameters are fixed in /etc/sysctl.d/99-security.conf: ICMP redirects are neither accepted nor sent, source-routed packets are rejected, and the rest are pinned at safe values so they cannot drift.

2. Unused Kernel Modules Disabled: 12 rarely used filesystem and network protocol modules are blocked from loading via /etc/modprobe.d/99-disable-unused.conf. No NVIDIA module is affected, and squashfs stays loadable so snap-packaged agents keep working.

3. SSH Login Window Tightened: LoginGraceTime is reduced from 120 to 60 seconds. Root login policy, authentication retries and forwarding are left as the base image ships them.

4. Fully Patched at Release: Zero packages carried an available upstream fix at build time, verified from what apt actually offered rather than from a scanner opinion.

GPU Stack Left Intact:

1. Nothing Touches the Driver: The NVIDIA driver, the CUDA libraries and the product's own services are untouched. After the tuning is applied and the instance reboots, the kernel command line is byte for byte identical to the base image and the network interface keeps its original name, both verified on a GPU instance.

AWS Network & Kernel Tuning:

1. Network Stack: TCP BBR congestion control with fair queueing, increased connection backlogs, raised socket buffer ceilings, and MTU probing enabled. Ceilings are only ever raised, never lowered.

2. System Tuning: tuned daemon active with an aws-optimized profile whose bootloader section is deliberately empty, and modified memory writeback parameters.

3. Reliability: The systemd journal is capped at 200 MB so logs cannot fill the root filesystem, and superseded kernels are cleaned up automatically.

Operational Tools:

1. Preinstalled Tools: AWS SSM Agent active, CloudWatch Agent installed (disabled by default).

Maintenance:

1. Maintenance Specifications: Rebuilt and updated bi-weekly to monthly incorporating upstream Ollama and Ubuntu 24.04 security updates, with artifact documentation refreshed per release.

About Ollama

A widely adopted open-source runtime that packages large language models into a single self-contained server with a pull-and-run workflow and an OpenAI-compatible REST API. It pairs with chat front-ends and low-code automation platforms such as Open WebUI, LibreChat, Dify, Langflow and n8n, and backs RAG pipelines built on Milvus, Chroma, PostgreSQL and Redis.

About Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

The most widely deployed Linux distribution in the cloud, built on the Debian foundation, with a five-year maintenance window for LTS releases and broad ecosystem compatibility across the AI and container tooling that GPU workloads depend on.