Preliminary Vast AI support

[kristopolous]

This is preliminary support for Vast. It currently works on an unreleased version of the SDK which we will soon get up to PyPy

The document https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oWox3qb3Kz3wXXSGg9ZJWwijoa99a3PIQUHBR8UgEGs/edit?pli=1&tab=t.0 was followed and all the testing passed

Tested (run the relevant ones):

• Code formatting: bash format.sh
• Any manual or new tests for this PR (please specify below)
• All smoke tests: pytest tests/test_smoke.py
• Relevant individual smoke tests: pytest tests/test_smoke.py::test_fill_in_the_name
• Backward compatibility tests: conda deactivate; bash -i tests/backward_compatibility_tests.sh

I'm pretty sure there will need to be edits, I'm fine with that. This is attempt 1. The outstanding work:

We need to

• tidy up our dockerhub and will get a better image to launch.
• release the updates to the sdk and come up with a pip name for it.
• get our catalog to update in the git hook flow as described (my goal is every 6 hours)

[cblmemo]

Thanks for contributing to this @kristopolous ! This is really exciting. Left some discussions. One main confusion I have is that, does vast ai like runpod, a cloud providing pods to users as their "VM"s? Asking because I'm seeing a lot of docker related code, and just want to confirm :)

[cblmemo]

same, is this not supported as well? This seems only not enabled in runpod for now, which I suppose is due to its pod nature for provisioned "VM"s. Is vast ai also provide pods to the user?

[kristopolous]

That was a copy/paste. We're actually working on releasing storage by the end of the calendar year. Right now, purchasing additional storage through us is not supported. I will change this to be more reflective of the current state of things.

[kristopolous]

see 98e3db5

[cblmemo]

Just want to make sure, it sounds like you are referring to cloud storage from VastAI? IIUC this feature actually means can you mount storages from any cloud (e.g. S3, GCS) in the VastAI clusters, and it should be supported as long as some mounting utils is supported. Though if VastAI using the same container fashion provisioning, it might not work as well. cc @romilbhardwaj - what is the reason runpod not support this feature?

[kristopolous]

Thanks for contributing to this @kristopolous ! This is really exciting. Left some discussions. One main confusion I have is that, does vast ai like runpod, a cloud providing pods to users as their "VM"s? Asking because I'm seeing a lot of docker related code, and just want to confirm :)

historically, runpod was a clone of vast. We currently offer docker-style containers and will be providing vms soonish (probably before end of year)

[kristopolous]

these test passing is blocked by https://github.com/skypilot-org/skypilot-catalog/pull/100/commits