add error handling for unexpected llama-server process exit

The RunPod support told me to do this until the issues are resolved.

.runpod/hub.json

@@ -16,11 +16,31 @@
                 "input": {
                     "name": "Command line arguments for llama-server",
                     "type": "string",
-                    "description": "Launch command line arguments (argv) for the llama-server binary. Do not define the port.",
+                    "description": "Launch command line arguments (argv) for the llama-server binary. Do not define the port. If using caching, do not define -hf or -m here.",
-                    "default": "-hf unsloth/gemma-3-270m-it-GGUF:Q6_K --ctx-size 4096 -ngl 99",
+                    "default": "-hf unsloth/gemma-3-270m-it-GGUF:Q6_K --ctx-size 4096 -ngl 999",
                     "advanced": false
                 }
             },
+            {
+                "key": "LLAMA_CACHED_MODEL",
+                "input": {
+                    "name": "Hugging Face Hub model name for cached model",
+                    "type": "string",
+                    "description": "Hugging Face Hub model name to use for the cached GGUF model. Leave empty to disable caching. Example: user/model-name",
+                    "default": "",
+                    "advanced": true
+                }
+            },
+            {
+                "key": "LLAMA_CACHED_GGUF_PATH",
+                "input": {
+                    "name": "Path to GGUF file in the Hugging Face Hub model repository",
+                    "type": "string",
+                    "description": "Path to the GGUF file in the Hugging Face Hub model repository to use for caching. Example: model.gguf",
+                    "default": "",
+                    "advanced": true
+                }
+            },
             {
                 "key": "MAX_CONCURRENCY",
                 "input": {

README.md

@@ -19,8 +19,7 @@ Streaming responses is also supported.
 
 ## Setup
 
-For the setup to work best, it is recommended to use a network volume attached to all workers which stores the model GGUFs and then reference those files in the launch arguments.
+To get the best performance out of this worker, it is recommended to use cached models. Please see the [cached models documentation](./docs/cached.md) for more information, this is **highly recommended and will save many resources**.
-Make sure your RunPod worker has access to the network volume, i.e. is located in the correct data center.
 
 ## Configuration
 

docs/cached.md

@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+# Using cached models
+
+## Introduction
+
+The classic way of loading a model from the Hugging Face Hub with the `LLAMA_SERVER_CMD_ARGS` is as follows:
+
+```bash
+-hf /path/to/model.gguf:Q4_K_M --ctx-size 4096 # etc...
+```
+
+However, this will cause every worker to download the model from the Hugging Face Hub every time it is started, which can be slow and inefficient.
+
+A naive way to cache the model would be to store it on a network volume in RunPod and reference the model files this way:
+
+```bash
+-hf /runpod-volume/model.gguf --ctx-size 4096 # etc...
+```
+
+Unfortunately, network volume performance is often not sufficient for loading large models, leading to long load times. RunPod introduced a [caching mechanism](https://docs.runpod.io/serverless/endpoints/model-caching) to solve this problem.
+
+The `inference-worker` for llama.cpp now supports this caching mechanism.
+
+## How to use the new caching mechanism
+
+It ships the `src/find_cached.py` script which can be used to reference any Hugging Face model of your choice and get its cached path on the local worker storage.
+
+Here is how the script can be used independently (which you will likely never need to do):
+
+```bash
+python3 src/find_cached.py HF_MODEL_ID GGUF_PATH_IN_REPO
+```
+
+Example:
+
+```bash
+python3 src/find_cached.py unsloth/gemma-3-270m-it-GGUF gemma-3-270m-it-Q8_0.gguf
+```
+
+Or, if your model is in a folder (an edge case nobody seems to be thinking about, driving me absolutely crazy):
+
+```bash
+python3 src/find_cached.py jacob-ml/jacob-24b models/jacob-24b-q4_k_m.gguf
+```
+
+We will now integrate this into our workflow. Hang tight.
+
+## Step-by-step guide
+
+1.  First of all, please enter the Hugging Face URL of the model you want to use in RunPod's `Model` field of your worker settings.
+
+    Example: For the model `unsloth/gemma-3-270m-it-GGUF`, you would enter `https://huggingface.co/unsloth/gemma-3-270m-it-GGUF`.
+
+2.  Now, in the environment variables, do NOT enter the `-hf` argument as before and also do NOT define `-m` in the `LLAMA_SERVER_CMD_ARGS`. The inference worker will take care of that for you.
+
+    Instead, set the `LLAMA_CACHED_MODEL` to the model ID, a.e. `unsloth/gemma-3-270m-it-GGUF`. Then, set the `LLAMA_CACHED_GGUF_PATH` to the path of the GGUF file in the repository, e.g. `gemma-3-270m-it-Q8_0.gguf`.
+
+3. Finally, in the `LLAMA_SERVER_CMD_ARGS`, you can now simply add the other arguments you want to use, e.g.:
+
+    ```bash
+    --ctx-size 4096 --temp 0.7 --top-p 0.9
+    ```
+
+4.  Done! The rest will be handled by the inference worker automatically. When the worker starts, it will resolve the cached model path and launch `llama-server` with the correct arguments.

src/start.sh

@@ -14,17 +14,28 @@ cleanup() {
     exit 0
 }
 
+CACHED_LLAMA_ARGS=""
+
+find_cached_path() {
+    CACHED_LLAMA_ARGS="-m $(python ./find_cached.py $LLAMA_CACHED_MODEL $LLAMA_CACHED_GGUF_PATH)"
+}
+
+# check if $LLAMA_CACHED_MODEL is set and not empty
+if [ -n "$LLAMA_CACHED_MODEL" ]; then
+    echo "start.sh: Caching is enabled. Finding cached model path..."
+    find_cached_path
+
+    echo "start.sh: Using cached model with arguments: $CACHED_LLAMA_ARGS"
+else
+    echo "start.sh: WARNING: Caching is disabled. Please visit the inference-worker README and docs to learn more."
+fi
+
 # check if $LLAMA_SERVER_CMD_ARGS is set
 if [ -z "$LLAMA_SERVER_CMD_ARGS" ]; then
     echo "start.sh: Warning: LLAMA_SERVER_CMD_ARGS is not set. Defaulting to -hf unsloth/gemma-3-270m-it-GGUF:IQ2_XXS --ctx-size 512 -ngl 999"
     LLAMA_SERVER_CMD_ARGS="-hf unsloth/gemma-3-270m-it-GGUF:IQ2_XXS --ctx-size 512 -ngl 999"
 fi
 
-# check if the substring /workspace is in LLAMA_SERVER_CMD_ARGS
-if [[ "$LLAMA_SERVER_CMD_ARGS" != *"/workspace"* ]]; then
-    echo "start.sh: Tip: For reduced downloads and faster startup times, consider using a model stored in the RunPod cache."
-fi
-
 # check if the substring --port is in LLAMA_SERVER_CMD_ARGS and if yes, raise an error:
 if [[ "$LLAMA_SERVER_CMD_ARGS" == *"--port"* ]]; then
     echo "start.sh: Error: You must not define --port in LLAMA_SERVER_CMD_ARGS, as port 3098 is required."
@@ -43,14 +54,14 @@ echo "start.sh: Stopping existing llama-server instances (if any)..."
 }
 
 # we have a string with all the command line arguments in the env var LLAMA_SERVER_CMD_ARGS;
-# it contains a.e. "-hf modelname --ctx-size 4096 -ngl 99".
+# it contains a.e. "-hf modelname --ctx-size 4096 -ngl 999".
 
 echo "start.sh: Running llama-server $LLAMA_SERVER_CMD_ARGS --port 3098"
 
 touch llama.server.log
 
 # We need to pass these arguments to llama-server verbatim.
-LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/app /app/llama-server $LLAMA_SERVER_CMD_ARGS --port 3098 2>&1 | tee llama.server.log &
+LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/app /app/llama-server $CACHED_LLAMA_ARGS $LLAMA_SERVER_CMD_ARGS --port 3098 2>&1 | tee llama.server.log &
 
 LLAMA_SERVER_PID=$! # store the process ID (PID) of the background command
 
@@ -62,6 +73,12 @@ check_server_is_running() {
     else
         return 1 # failure
     fi
+
+    # check if the process is still running
+    if ! kill -0 $LLAMA_SERVER_PID 2>/dev/null; then
+        echo "start.sh: Error: llama-server process has exited unexpectedly."
+        exit 1
+    fi
 }
 
 echo "start.sh: Waiting for llama-server to start..."